


The Truth About Monsters

by girlskylark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Industrial Revolution, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Archer Honerva, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate vibes, Bisexual Blaytz, Confused Zarkon, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Engineer Honerva, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Healing, Herbology, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Magical Creatures, Mutual Pining, Nature Magic, Nymphs & Dryads, Officer Zarkon, Pining, Potions, Werewolf Hunters, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-15 21:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13040202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlskylark/pseuds/girlskylark
Summary: Alfor was used to the usual patients—children with fevers, elderly with joint pain, you name it. But due to Zarkon's involvement with the beast terrorizing the outskirts of the city, he starts to take in more and more injured volunteers who got a little too close to the beast's claws. He hardly expected to heal the beast himself: an infected shapeshifter named Coran.Alfor is thrust into the ongoing feud between the animals of the forest and mankind all while trying to convince Coran that humans aren't inherently vicious. The revolution going on in the city says otherwise, where people begin to view magic as an animalistic curse from nature rather than the gift Alfor always saw it as. With no method of communication with the wilderness, humans begin contemplating total annihilation of the forest—unless Coran is able to speak for the animals himself.It'd be easier if the people trusted Coran, but it's difficult when they can only remember him as the beast who nearly killed several civilians at the start.





	1. so much for a quiet evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back in September, I was thoroughly inspired by Caro's ([thesearchingastronaut](http://thesearchingastronaut.tumblr.com/)) enthusiasm about Alforan, and so we theorized about a fantasy AU together, and then brainstormed, and one thing led to another and we wound up plotting an entire fic together! So I binge-wrote all of this back in September, and I'd really like to get back into it because I loved the plot and all that! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy :D

 

Alfor stuttered awake with a jolt, gasping so hard he started coughing over the sound of someone hammering their fist on his door yelling, “ _Alfor! Open up!_ ”

Disoriented, he scrambled out of the chair he fell asleep in, and swatted off the bit of paper that stuck to his cheek. His foot caught on the leg of the chair and he tipped over, shouting as he fell and hurried back to his feet. The chair crashed to the floor as he was hurrying to the door, cringing all along the way, apologizing to the chair, “So sorry, oh gods—”

“ _Alfor!_ ”

“Coming!” he called out, all but tripping down the stairs to the front door that he frantically unlocked bolt-by-bolt. 

When the door swung open, he was shoved aside by several people carrying a man on a stretcher. He vaguely heard the muffled shouts from outside that carried in, covered by the rag stuffed in the man’s mouth. “Holy crow—” he gasped. “Another one?”

“It happened on the hunt for that _thing_ out there,” one of the men said, still dressed for the hunt so many others gathered in. Alfor never would have endorsed it, but helping the injured in this quest sort of… solidified his otherwise indifferent stance. He couldn’t leave people—even ignorant ones—out to die from mortal wounds. 

“You know what I have to say about that,” Alfor said, about to continue when one of the women snapped at him—

“We don’t need to hear it, just _help him!_ ”

Alfor jumped, startled by the order, and leapt back into business. His adrenaline swept him over to the table where the man’s arm was viciously torn into by the creature lingering outside the city limits. The skin over his left pectoral was flayed open by the marks of claws that skimmed off a layer of his flesh. It was all haphazardly covered by the materials they had on hand at the time, now soaked with blood that Alfor peeled off bit by bit, revealing the gore and the distress on his audiences’ faces.

“Well don’t just _stand there!_ I need lukewarm water and a rag,” he ordered, already hurrying to grab medicinal ingredients from his glass cabinets in the store along with a needle and thread, and a candle that lit as he walked back to the table his visitors placed the victim on.

By the time he got back, a basin of water was prepped, and he set to work cleaning the wound before whisking a bit of the flame onto the tip of one finger. He looked past the sweat and the tension in the man’s pained expression and winced. “This will hurt a little,” he said, and set to work cauterizing the wound.

 

. . .

 

“This is just flat out ridiculous,” Alfor seethed the following morning, flicking yet another bloody rag into the tub to rinse it out. He doused the water with a potion to cleanse the blood out, and the water hissed with it, steaming up around him as he turned to his companion at the door. “You can’t expect me to keep healing your people, Zarkon.”

Zarkon simply stared at him, arms crossed and leaning against the open doorframe as Alfor snatched the now-clean towel out of the tub. “I know you’ll never see the beast our way,” his friend said, “but you have to admit that it _is_ a danger to our people. You’ve seen what it can do! Imagine if it reached the city—then what?”

“It cannot reach the city,” Alfor huffed. “And it’s probably just… it’s probably just _terrified_ of all these people coming at it with guns and knives and arrows! Could you imagine being in that poor creature’s body at this very moment, licking the wounds furious bipedal creatures inflicted on it!”

“You’re humanizing the damn thing—”

“I am _not!_ ”

“This beast is just as threatening to us as _murderers_ in our own backyard! It _is_ practically in our backyard—”

“ _Zarkon—_ ”

“Or at least it _will be_ if we don’t kill it first! It’s _dangerous_ and you know it,” he hissed, stepping into the bathroom as Alfor turned and glowered up at his friend. He’d always been the short one of the two, ever since they were children. Compared to Zarkon, it was almost as if Alfor never experienced a growth spirt in his life. But he always showed great pride in Zarkon’s ambition wherever it took him—Alfor tended to consider himself the one who helped fertilize his friend’s success, but he would never boast that allowed.

However much he loved his friend, Alfor could stand to butt heads with Zarkon once in a while. This was one of those occasions.

Zarkon narrowed his eyes at Alfor and said, “And I am _not_ taking you up on your offer.”

“I _did_ say the cost of healing one more friend—”

“ _No_ , I can’t allow it,” he insisted, shaking his head. He pursed his lips, pulling them back as he shook his head again. “I won’t let you. You’re my friend—I can’t let you risk your life over an animal that means nothing to me.”

“I can reason with it—remember how _I_ was the one to tame your rabid dog?” Alfor said, putting his hands on his hips and sticking his nose in the air.

Zarkon huffed, laughing hollowly as he said, “There’s a difference between a domestic dog and a magical beast.”

“Magical beast or not, it’s still an animal. You called Beezer a beast the first time you saw him,” he insisted, and grinned as Zarkon sighed, leaning back on his heels as he looked away. _Checkmate_. “I refuse to heal another one of your crew members until you let me reason with the creature. And don’t test me on this—lives are on the line.”

When Zarkon said nothing, Alfor tipped his head to the side to catch a glimpse of the way his friend’s brow tensed before sparing a glance at Alfor. “Do me this one favor, okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” Zarkon sighed. “I’ll arrange things for tonight.”

“ _Yes_ —!”

“Don’t get too excited,” he huffed, turning and heading out the door as Alfor thrust his fists into the air, and danced with a previous-blood-soaked towel still dripping in his hands. 

There were several reasons for Alfor to get unreasonably excited about this turn of events. One, _weeks_ of begging Zarkon and other civilians in the city to reconsider their attack on the creature would finally come to an end (hopefully); two, he was able to bask in the glory of _finally_ (maybe) changing Zarkon’s mind—that was always a success in his book; and three, despite being an _apothecary_ , of all things, he still relished a bit of _excitement_ now and again. 

But there was also one reason he cared not to wallow in until the time came, and it was that Zarkon would come knocking on his door, and the instant Alfor opened it, he would be smothered in the hard shell of a full chest plate of armor.

“I am _not_ letting you go out there without protection,” he insisted.

“How thoughtful of you,” Alfor hummed, feeling a bit like there was something stuck in his armpits preventing his arms from resting flat on his sides—oh wait, that was just the _full chest plate Zarkon thrust on him_.

“I also brought you a helmet.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to—” Alfor’s words were cut out by Zarkon fitting the helmet over his head and giving it a pat. “Goodness, Zar, where did you find all this?”

“Perks of the job,” he said, beaming at Alfor as he passed the threshold, and wandered into the store where just the night before a man laid dying on the center table. Zarkon addressed the area with a brief, but thorough scan before turning his eyes back to Alfor and saying, “You look good in it.”

“Why thank you. I never considered myself _built_ for combat,” Alfor confessed, closing the door. He turned back to his friend, who was fitted in the usual, enhanced police uniform that supplied a burly jacket with a leather belt around the waist. Alfor wouldn’t be so surprised if he found leather armor underneath it. “Honestly, is this necessary? It’s a bit _medieval_ , don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“People don’t exactly _go around_ wearing armor these days. Well, unless we’re at war, which I certainly hope we’re not. I can’t say I’ve checked the newspapers lately.”

“We’re at war with an animal.”

“You know that doesn’t count.”

“Yes, but—”

“No ‘ _but’s!_ No ‘but’s in this household!” Alfor shouted, snatching a satchel off of the table and thrusting it over one shoulder. “Now let’s get on with it.”

Zarkon burst into laughter, clapping an arm around Alfor’s shoulders as they headed for the door. “ _gods_ , you sound like my mother.”

“I stand in place of your mother most days, so that doesn’t surprise me.” Alfor adjusted the helmet on his head to glare at Zarkon through it, but grinned as they both dissolved into laughter on the brick street where Alfor’s apothecary stood.

The trip to the outskirts of the city took far longer than Alfor anticipated, but then again, the farthest he usually went from his apothecary was just a short walk away. The only reason he _really_ had to travel was for helping bedridden patients or delivering goods, picking up goods. He never had much of a reason to go _beyond_ the city walls, and past the strip of cornfields where their vehicle pulled alongside a collection of rusty trucks waiting with their lights on. The spotlights were on the trees, and the shadows cast into the dark pit of the forest. The road stopped there—the normal way around the forest was towards the foothills a mile north.

Alfor wriggled himself out of the passenger’s seat in time for Zarkon to hurry over and help him. His feet dropped to the ground, and he let out a victorious “Aha!” and tossed his arms up. Someone near them started clapping so he fake-bowed, only to be scolded by Zarkon. 

“Oh, lighten up,” Alfor said.

“I can’t imagine you’d say that if you were in _my_ position,” he remarked, glancing towards the forest. Alfor followed his gaze before being brought back to the situation at hand. “I know you’ve always taken care of me, but… I never feel like I do the same for you. This is just proof of it.”

“I’m doing this out of my own free will,” he insisted. “You have nothing to do with it.”

“I have everything to do with protecting you,” he countered, pressing a hand to his forehead. “The last thing I want is for you to get _hurt—_ ”

“Ah, so the two buffoons finally decided to show up,” a woman’s voice sounded behind them, and it split a grin across Alfor’s face as he turned to face the one and only Honerva Gray. 

Honvera was one of the most brilliant individuals Alfor knew, and her prowess as a hunter never ceased to amaze and terrify him. She was dressed up in that long-tailed coat with a sash crossing over her chest, one gloved hand setting on the chord of her bow that rested on it. Her hair was fashioned into her usual bun—Alfor never saw her without it. 

“Nice to see you as always, Honerva,” Alfor said. 

“Can’t say the same to you. Zar here says you plan on killing yourself tonight.”

“I wasn’t _that_ crude about it,” Zarkon insisted, pouting at her as she sidled up and leaned in to Alfor to whisper, “He’s right. He _did_ manage to call you a raving lunatic, though.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he laughed with Honerva as Zarkon scowled at them both. 

“I’ll be nearby if things go sour,” she said, clapping Alfor on the back as she added, “Don’t forget—I’m an excellent shot.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” he hummed, watching her walk off before drawing his eye up to his friend’s. Zarkon’s gaze still followed after her, lingering for a moment before sighing dully at Alfor. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, but sometimes I _swear_ I can read your _mind_ ,” he remarked, flicking Alfor’s ridiculous armor with his fingers.

Alfor chuckled to himself as he followed Zarkon away from the vehicles, and closer to the magnificent redwoods that marked the border between civilization and nature. The borderline was difficult to miss, considering the gargantuan vegetation growing weeds as tall as Zarkon. Alfor was soon dwarfed by the fine, transparent green leaves arcing over his head. He reached a hand up to touch it, and looked at his friend, who hardly seemed keen on allowing that to happen.

Zarkon turned back to the other officers with them. “Keep the volunteers back,” he said, “Four of you—come with us. Get the archers into the trees.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” Alfor said, but the officers were already moving, summoning forth archers and dragging ropes out of the backs of cars. “I didn’t come here to _fight_ the creature—”

“This is for our protection,” he insisted. “Now come on, let’s get moving.”

He held aside the leaves for Alfor to duck underneath them, and maneuver between them onto flatter ground. The plants within the forest, sheltered by the shade of the canopy, were smaller, and brushed against Alfor’s knees as he walked past and followed previous trails made by the hunters. Zarkon stayed in front, turning back periodically to check that Alfor was behind him, and the other five officers were with them. 

As they all lumbered through the woods, Alfor couldn’t help but sigh and consider just how obnoxious they were, marching in here as if they owned the place. _All the predators in the area must be laughing at us_ , he mused, frowning at his feet as he kept a hand held tight to the bag over his shoulders.

“So… what does this creature look like?” he asked the officers with him.

“Like the Devil—it has horns—”

“It does not,” one of them started.

“It changes. When I saw it, it had the mane of a _lion_.”

“Oh, be serious.”

“I am serious!”

“Right, so you’re tellin’ me it didn’t have tusks and big-ass feet?”

“It _does_ have big-ass feet—”

“Really? I thought it was very agile. Like a… gazelle—”

“Oh for gods’ sake—!”

Alfor hid his laughter behind his hand until Zarkon stopped to glare at him. “Oh, what? We can’t have a bit of fun?” Alfor said.

“This isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘ _fun_ ’,” he remarked, falling into step with Alfor as they trudged further, stepping around the trunk of a tree that was approximately the diameter of a full-length human body. Alfor marveled at it, and would have stuck around, but there were plenty of others to see along the way.

They walked for _ages_ until at last coming to a gorge where they could hear the line of archers approaching behind, and chucking weighted rope into the trees. Alfor saw a glint of metal swing up and loop over one of the arcing branches above their heads before dropping into Honerva’s hand. She waved to him from afar before starting the climb up the tree. Alfor turned back to Zarkon, who had a hand held up to silence them all.

Alfor strained to listen, and to see through the approaching darkness. It was after sunset, and yet the light of the sun glowed a gentle orange between the trees where it was being overtaken by the deep blue sky. He squinted at the depth of the gorge, held back by Zarkon’s hand on his arm. It was so _dark—_ he couldn’t see a damn thing.

He drew a finger down the length of his forearm like a match, striking a magelight and holding it up with his now-glowing fingertip. He heard the audible gasps from the officers behind him, and Zarkon all but slapped his hand down. “Do you _want_ to get us killed?” he hissed at Alfor. “It’ll see the light and come for us—”

“Isn’t that what we want?” he countered. “I want to meet it.”

“This isn’t a fucking _human—_ ” Zarkon seethed, only to be drowned out by the wretched shriek of something that sounded a whole lot like nails scraping against metal. 

Alfor resisted the urge to flinch, looking every which way before realizing that every last person with him was cowering. Zarkon was pulling him back from the gorge ledge, but he fought, and tugged himself free. “ _No!_ You all go—I stay,” he insisted.

“Don’t even _start_ with me, Alfor,” Zarkon seethed, attempting to slap the magelight out of his hand again. Alfor held it up and back, towards the gorge where they began to hear the rustle of leaves crushing under the weight of the creature’s paws.

Zarkon cursed and told the officers to stay back. He rushed forward, blocking Alfor from the edge just as a black dot emerged on the other side of the gorge, crawling up the bark of a tree before bracing its back legs against it. Alfor was almost too fascinated to register that Zarkon was reaching for his pistol. 

“ _No!_ Don’t shoot,” he cried, grabbing the gun and chucking it as far as he could. Zarkon let out a slew of curses before yelling, thrusting Alfor to the side and into the brush as the beast flung itself across the entire length of the gorge.

Its claws dug into the ledge, tearing dirt away as it crawled up, teeth bared and snarling in Alfor’s direction. Their eyes met, and Alfor could see the merge between a panther and a bear gripping the hackles of the creature, slicking into raised black fur and rounded ears. 

Something hit the side of its head, sending it snarling in the direction of Zarkon, who stood not far away holding another rock in his fist. The creature clamored up onto the ledge, muscles rippling beneath the surface of taunt black fur. Its tail whipped from side to side, narrowly missing Alfor’s face as he backed into a tree and scrambled for his bag. 

“ _COME AT ME!_ ” Zarkon roared at it, whipping the rock at the animal. It hit the creature’s shoulder, sending it yowling in agony where several arrows were lodged in a patchwork of crosshatches. Its leg gave out for a moment, but came back strong if it meant taking Zarkon down—

“No—over here!” Alfor shouted, popping the cap on a vial. A waft of the potion nearly sent him gagging, but it was stopped by a shriek of terror when the creature all but lunged at him.

Its weight slammed into his chest where its claws gripped into the armor, ripping a bit of his jacket, and pinning his arm to the tree. He tossed the contents of the vial onto the beasts fur, gasping as it parted its jaws at him, revealing rows of blood-stained teeth.

_Please work please work please work_ , he begged, scrunching his eyes shut as the creature’s nail bit into his arm before all at once slackening, slumping over him with all its weight. 

The beast collapsed on him, and he went scrambling for the second potion, panting hard as someone suddenly approached with a gun raised at the creature. “No don’t! Don’t shoot it!” he cried out. “I can fix it—”

“It’s unconscious—we can take care of it!” the man yelled.

Alfor’s fingers shook trying to undo the cap on the container, frantic to help the creature before anyone could harm it. His eyes stung as he heard Zarkon kneel down beside him and take the container, popping open the cap for him, and handing it back. “Just give it a minute or two,” he ordered the officer. “Alfor knows what he’s doing—but let’s get this thing off of you first.”

Alfor nodded, and let Zarkon and the officer push the creature off of his now-numb legs. He reached over and pried apart the animal’s jaws, and reached far back to place the tablet in its throat. He clenched its muzzle shut then, and held it in hopes that the creature would swallow the tablet, or at least get some of its effects. 

It didn’t take long. In the time it took for Alfor to look up at Zarkon, and back at everyone else, he felt a spasm go through the beast, pulsing underneath its fur and flesh until it flailed with a cry. Alfor’s magelight burnt out, and was instead overcome by a fierce glow. 

The light shuddered over the beast’s body, dwarfing it, and changed it into something that had every last person in that forest gasping. When the light faded, it gave way to white skin marred by mud and dirt, and the blood of the wounds Alfor’s people inflicted on it. He winced at the agony of the arrows that lodged themselves through the shapeshifter’s arm, his shoulder, and piercing his side. 

“It’s… a man?” Zarkon said.

“Shapeshifter, really,” Alfor corrected. “But I don’t see why he would have…?”

“Murdered his own people?” the officer finished. “Kill him! He might be human, but he’s still a beast if he attacks people!”

“He’s dangerous! We can let him live!” one of the archers in the trees shouted as Alfor pulled the shapeshifter up and demanded Zarkon’s jacket. He hadn’t brought many healing supplies with him, so they stuck with snapping the ends of the arrows off and draping the jacket as best they could around the stubs. 

Alfor laid his fingers around the arrow lodged completely through the man’s shoulder. He looked over at the tense, pained expression on the man’s face—his unruly red hair, clumped with mud and leaves. The skin was irritated around the arrow head, oozing infectious pus and, when Alfor sparked another magelight, it highlighted the area as _purple_.

“What is this?” he whispered, looking to Zarkon. “Someone poisoned this arrow.”

“A lot of hunters do that,” he insisted, but Alfor shook his head. “Though… I haven’t seen these effects before.”

“So what if someone’s poisoned the arrow?” the officer said. “Especially when we’re all scared shitless of the damn—the damn _shapeshifter_!”

“Shapeshifters aren’t _inherently_ ruthless,” Alfor spat at him. “Do you know _anything_ about them?”

“Calm down, Alfor,” Zarkon said.

“ _No_ , I want to know what you all know of shapeshifters! The fact that none of you recognized the mixed species as a shapeshifter virus is _immensely_ disturbing. Either you willingly went into this knowing the shapeshifter was an infected victim, or you were _ignorant_ and _didn’t know—_ ”

“Infected or not he’s still a danger to our city,” the officer insisted as more of Zarkon’s people stepped forward through the foliage. 

“That’s _ridiculous_!” Alfor shrieked.

Zarkon raised a hand to silence them both, rising from where he knelt beside Alfor. “We’ll take the shapeshifter back with us. He’s still human—if only partially—which means we have to hear what he has to say. Are we clear?”

The officer clenched his teeth shut to keep from defying his superior. The other officers seemed to do the same, and the archers pulled the arrows away from their bowstrings. “Good,” Zarkon said. “Now help me carry the shapeshifter back.”

Alfor hurried after them through the forest, keeping his eyes on the shapeshifter, and holding Zarkon’s jacket on occasion to make sure it stayed in place. He caught his friend staring at him more than once, and at last asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, but Alfor simply raised an eyebrow at that. Zarkon rolled his eyes and sighed, “I just—I didn’t know you knew things about shapeshifters.”

Alfor shrugged and said, “I loved reading seemly useless texts as a kid. All the shapeshifter books in the libraries were untouched so I dabbled for a little while.”

“I never would have known that the… beast was a _shapeshifter_. What do you suppose happened to him?” he asked.

Alfor shrugged. Shapeshifter illnesses were different from any other he would normally treat, but… given the varying opinions Zarkon once gave of the creature’s appearance, it wasn’t a long shot to suggest that a shapeshifter was involved. He could have picked up the virus from another one of his kind, or from a bizarre bug bite, or from a severe cold. 

But… that poisoned arrow did _not_ look promising.

 

. . .

 

The shapeshifter was unconscious during the time it took to migrate him to Alfor’s shop, and lay him out over the wooden table where just the day before, Alfor patched up one of his victims. Zarkon’s officers stuck around under their superior’s orders—the last thing Zarkon wanted was for the shapeshifter to shift and tear up the inside of Alfor’s shop. 

He set to work grabbing supplies and ordering Zarkon to fetch him this-or-that. He grabbed a tweezers, wire, and a needle and burned them both over the flaming tip of a candle. “We have to remove the arrows,” he said.

“What about the bullet wounds?”

“Arrow wounds are more deadly and difficult. A bullet can be left in the body if necessary, but it looks like most of the bullets passed through during the shift,” he explained, brushing a hand over his forehead and realizing his fingers were shaking. “Someone grab me some liquor from the basement.”

As one of the officers ran off to fetch it, Zarkon handed him a tub of water. “We have to enlarge the arrow wounds to see if the heads have been dislodged,” Alfor explained. “The more inflamed the wounds get, the more likely the arrowheads are to have fallen off from soaking in blood.”

“I can’t—” Zarkon started, but Alfor grabbed him by the hand and shoved it over the nearest arrow wound on the shapeshifter’s arm. 

Alfor grabbed the liquor the second the officer came up with it. He used the force of his magic to dislodge the cork and take a swig before passing it to Zarkon. “On the count of three, we’re both going to twirl the arrow shafts. Ready?”

Zarkon nodded, sweat-soaked black hair clinging to his forehead as they both returned to the task at hand. Alfor counted down, and all together they began twirling the arrows, locating the arrow heads, and extracting them with loops of wire. Their fingers were stained with shapeshifter by the end of the night.

 

. . .

 

“It’s certainly not any poison I would have authorized. I’m not even sure I’ve heard of it,” Zarkon confessed, peering over Alfor’s shoulder as he searched his botany shelves and pulled out any involving poisons. He wasn’t as familiar with poisons as he was with medicines—he only studied them in bits and pieces to understand how to combat the effects. This was when he wished he had a greater understand of toxicology.

“What, silvermarrow?” he asked, and Zarkon nodded. “It seems to fit the bill. But I can’t imagine many poison experts actively _seek out_ the pith of rare trees. They must know that they’re damaging and endangered species.”

“The pith?”

“The core of a tree trunk,” he explained, and Zarkon hummed thoughtfully. “Did you pay _any_ attention in your biology lectures?”

“Hm… only the parts involving… the whole… you know what I mean.”

“You mean… sexual reproduction?” Alfor said, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s the one!”

“Oh, Honerva was right—you _are_ crude.”

“Lately, yes.”

Alfor glared at Zarkon from over his shoulder, but softened at the sight of his friend shrugging carelessly and turning away. “How’s your patient, though? Woken up yet?”

“Not _really_ ,” he sighed, frowning yet again as he flicked through another textbook before placing it back on the bookshelf. “I wasn’t sure how resistant the creature would be and merely hoped that it was a shapeshifter. So I gave him my most potent sleep potion. It could last weeks—”

“Oh g _ods—_ ”

“Or it could last a day. I really don’t know. Either way, it’s an excellent anesthesia, too. Perfect for painful surgeries.”

“You aren’t a surgeon—how do you know that?”

“I’ve dabbled.”

“You can’t just _dabble_ as a surgeon, Alfor,” Zarkon laughed, and Alfor dissolved into giggles as he ducked his head into the notebook in his hand.

They were on the staircase leading up to Alfor’s loft where his kitchen was, his bedroom was, and his study. It was riddled with books, and jammed with stacks of them that didn’t quite fit onto the shelves. Alfor stepped around a pile on his way up, and stopped at the landing to address the fact that Zarkon was following him up. “I told you—no one’s allowed up here until the shapeshifter’s awake.”

“As if I’m going to assassinate him,” Zarkon argued. “You’d _maim_ me.”

“I very well might,” he agreed. “If you come up, _please_ refrain from attacking my guest?”

Zarkon gave him a dull look and passed Alfor on the way up the stairs. It sent Alfor’s nerves into a tizzy, which carried him up after his friend to protect the shapeshifter lying on the couch.

Alfor stepped around Zarkon to observe the progress on his guests’ wounds. The unpoisoned arrowheads were removed, and the damage was hardly noticeable after Alfor spent an hour healing and stitching each one of the holes. On top of that, his guest’s skin was now dented from bullet wounds that made Alfor’s fingertips ache from the slimy texture of plucking fragments from the wounds that he pushed out with gentle, methodical magic. 

He reached over and pulled the wool blanket up farther, tucking it up over the man’s body aside from the severely swollen, purple shoulder. In the light, they both could see the raised, purple surface, speckled and dotting across the man’s pale white flesh.

“I have a few theories, but I’m not entertaining any of them until I get his full story,” Alfor confessed quietly. “I think most of them have to do with that arrow. The wound itself refuses to heal. I’ve been trying to close it up, but it seems to have been there for too long. The puss prevents it from healing.”

“Disgusting.”

“What! It’s biology!”

“I told you, I only paid attention to the reproduction parts.”

“You mean… the sexual reproduction unit?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“You’re _so—_ ” 

Their laughter was cut off by the sound of the man on the couch groaning, shifting, and lifting a hand onto his shoulder. They both froze, staring as the shapeshifter pressed a finger into the purple skin and moaned, turning over, and falling completely off the couch in a pained heap. 

The second he touched the ground, he was up, scrambling to his feet before Alfor could stop him. Zarkon had his gun out in an instant, and Alfor yelped, shouting, “Put that away!” as the shapeshifter froze, wide blue eyes trained on the barrel of the gun. Alfor would have been lying if he admitted that he wasn’t concerned about how _crazed_ the man looked.

Zarkon clicked the safety of his gun off, and it caused both Alfor _and_ the shapeshifter to flinch. “Will you _put that away?_ ” Alfor seethed. 

“I will when he proves that he can even _talk_ ,” he hissed.

“Even if he can’t, I would never allow—”

“I can talk,” the man said, voice hoarse and thick in his throat. He cleared it, raising a hand to his neck and saying, “I need—um—”

“Water,” Alfor finished, still wary of his friend’s gun. Zarkon side-eyed him before grumbling under his breath and putting it away. 

Alfor ran off to the kitchen to fetch a glass. He filled it to the rim, cursing when it splashed onto the floor on his way back to where Zarkon and the shapeshifter were staring each other down like two rabid dogs. The second Alfor was close, the man grabbed the cup, chugging it, not caring about the water that dribbled into his beard and onto his bare chest. Alfor spared a glance at Zarkon, who folded his arms to keep from snatching up his weapon again.

“Could you… tell us your name?” Alfor asked as the shapeshifter finished off the last of the water and walked over to the end table to set the glass down. Alfor noticed that his movements were rigid, like he was stuck in a skintight suit rather than a pair of loose sleep trousers.

“Coran,” he said, eyeing Zarkon as he said it.

“Coran. My name’s Alfor, and this is my friend Zarkon,” he said, gesturing to Zarkon as he did so. “Do you… remember anything from your last few shifts?”

Coran narrowed his eyes at Alfor, not maliciously—just… curious. As if he was wondering to himself, “How does this man know I shift?” After a moment of thought, realization dawned on his expression, and turned into pure, wretched agony that spilled over into tears. He clasped a hand over his mouth, gagging, and Alfor jumped into motion. He grabbed the nearest pot on the stove and thrust it at the man, who vomited into it immediately.

All that came up was bile, but it still made Alfor cringe, thankful that no one had been eaten alive by the “beast” during all that time. Injured, maybe, but thankfully this man—Coran—wasn’t a complete murderer. All extremely close calls. 

Alfor offered a rag, which Coran placed over his mouth, clearing his throat and holding back another retch.

“I can’t do that again,” he said, voice quiet, muffled by the rag. “I—”

“I think it’s an infection,” Alfor said, “Caused by silvermarrow. Have you heard of it?”

“Yes—I think—I remember being… home, and—and—”

Alfor turned and cleared through the pages on his dining room table, trying to find the arrowhead among it. The sight of Coran’s oozing wound drew him to it, and he held it up, stopping Coran in his tracks. “Were you pierced with this? It was through your shoulder,” he said.

“Yes, I was,” he gasped, touching a hand to his shoulder again. “I tried to get it out and heal myself, but I shifted before I could stop it. What day is it?” he asked, and when Zarkon told him, he clasped both hands to the sides of his face, rag dropping to the floor. “I haven’t—I haven’t been able to shift back properly in _weeks_ —What if—”

“We’ll stop it before you shift again. I promise,” Alfor said. “I gave you medicine to force your shapeshifter magic down, but I imagine it’ll be back in a day or two. If we can’t fix the infection by then, we’ll just have to keep pushing it down.”

“So… he can’t control the shifts?” Zarkon said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit _dangerous_ to keep him around your _house_?”

“Maybe in a day from now, but until then…” Alfor started, grabbing up a beaker from his slew of potions. “If I would have given this to you without being sure the poisoned arrow was the cause of it, I imagine the side effects would have killed you before the infection did. But it’ll combat the silvermarrow no problem.”

“And those side effects you were talking about?” Coran commented. 

“Nonexistent now that we know it’s silvermarrow. You might show some fatigue or… nausea… but mostly nonexistent,” Alfor reassured him, handing him the beaker. “The whole thing.”

“The whole thing?”

“Yes, I just said ‘the whole thing’,” he said, pulling his hands back as Coran weighed the beaker in his one good hand before shrugging and tipping it to his lips. 

As Coran chugged the beaker, taking several breaks to get the awful taste down, Alfor said to Zarkon, “I imagine that whoever shot the arrow at him intended for the infection to kill him if they weren’t able to do so first. It probably backfired, considering the fact that Coran’s positive magic was completely stamped out with negative magic. Both forms of magic are powerful, but if it’s used negatively, the effects would cause Coran to shift into maliciously rather than peacefully.”

Zarkon hummed, cupping a hand over his squarish chin as he watched Coran finish off the beaker and stick his tongue out as if a breeze might come by and sweep the foul taste away. 

Coran took a step back, only to trip and fall into the couch. He tipped to the side, slurring, “I feel… a bit lightheaded…” with his eyes wide like a cat’s, surveying the room and the fact that he was watched over by two full-grown men leaning over the couch to make sure their guest was all right.

“You’ve knocked him unconscious,” Zarkon said, which earned him a slap on the arm from Alfor.

Though, the instant Alfor turned back to Coran, he found the man completely dead to the world aside from the dreams in his head. Alfor waved his hand in front of Coran’s face, but it was useless considering the deep sleep he was now in. Alfor stood back with his hands on his hips, and scratched a hand to his chin.

“It seems I have,” he hummed. “I guess potion-making is more of a science than an art, don’t you think?”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean? Are you saying you go all… willy nilly with your potions?” Zarkon gawked, watching Alfor wander off back to his table of supplies. “Didn’t you go to _school_ for this?”

“I never said my methods were _traditional_ ,” he said, but corrected himself, “Or rather, _modern_. My methods _are_ traditional, but you see, those terms get a bit mixed up nowadays—”

“As you’ve said more times than I can count…” Zarkon groaned, dragging a hand down his face. 

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yeah, but I can’t _leave you here_ with a strange man lingering around your house!” he cried out.

“He isn’t lingering—he’s passed out!”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, and I think you’re being ridiculous. I can take care of myself,” Alfor insisted. “Besides, if something _does_ happen, you can say ‘I told you so’.”

Zarkon fell quiet until Alfor eventually turned around to look at him, and that way he opened his eyes wide and pouted his lips. Alfor slapped his arms down, groaning at him. “Don’t give me that look! Stop that! Zar, come on…”

“Stop what?” he said, waltzing closer to the stairs with his hands clasped behind him, head down. 

“Good _Lord_ , Zar.”

“I’m not doing anything.” He scuffed his boot on the carpet.

“Well now you’re just getting my perfect rug all dirty with your moping. Stop that, I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too. I’m leaving right now.” Zarkon lingered at the threshold, though, and took one fatal step to the landing that overlooked the shop below. He turned back to Alfor, his boyish pout withering Alfor’s confidence bit by bit. 

“You’re just—You’re _insufferable_ , you know that?” Alfor whined, marching back to the table with a groan, completely aware of how Zarkon beamed at him, stepping back into the house. “You can stay for dinner.”

“Perfect. I wasn’t sure what I was going to eat for dinner anyways,” he said. “I’ll treat you next time.”

“I don’t trust your cooking,” Alfor hummed from the table, “but by all means, have at it.”

“That’s just because you’re a goddamn bird. You eat a bit of lettuce here, a bit of lettuce there—”

“I do _not!_ ” Alfor gawked, dropping the paper in his hand to glower at Zarkon from across the floor. “I cook!”

“Yeah, only when you claim to have time, which is never. I’m honestly surprised you took the day off for that shapeshifter,” he said, lifting the lid on Alfor’s cooler and frowning at the scarce contents within the ice. He dropped the lid with a sigh. “Have you got anything in the basement?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’ with a grin. 

“I’m going out to buy you food—”

“Oh really? What happened to protecting me? Don’t I need a knight in shining armor?” he asked, and received a glare for it. 

“I’ll be back in less than an hour. And I swear if anything happens when I’m gone…” Zarkon pegged Alfor with a sharp jab of his finger, unable to finish the threat because it was too gruesome for either of them to comprehend. 

The start of that hour alone consisted of more than a handful of sighs, some fiddling around with his notebook, and scooting up a chair beside the shapeshifter’s couch. Alfor wasn’t entirely sure _when_ he dubbed the couch specifically The Shapeshifter’s Couch, but it was now, and he sat beside it prodding at the infected flesh on his shoulder. It reminded Alfor vaguely of necromancers in novels rising the dead—this was the flesh of a deadman. And it very well could be if his potion didn’t work. 

_I need a Plan B_ , he gasped internally, pushing away from the couch and crying out when the chair spun and nearly dumped him onto the rug.

Alfor wasn’t much of a dancer, or a musician at all. In fact, he was both tone-deaf _and_ clumsy with his feet when it came to synchronized movements. Still, he swung out a record from the cabinet and twisted it around, dropping it onto the phonograph and letting the music play. Even if he couldn’t dance for shit, the beat helped him concentrate.

He sashayed across the floor back to the table where he began to clean up supplies and papers, and textbooks he had lying around. All the while, his attention flickered on and off of his guest. When he disappeared into other rooms, he leant back out of the threshold to check to make sure that Coran wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t imagine what his neighbors would think if a burly ginger-haired man started walking shirtless down the streets. Alfor scoffed at the thought, placing flasks and supplies back on the shelves. He wiped them down with a cloth, humming to the music muffled through the walls.

Alfor’s home was, more or less, the floor above which is store was. It consisted of everything he needed—a kitchen, a study, a bedroom, and the narrow greenhouse that overlapped a portion of the shop. He crossed the apartment with a bounce in his step on his way over there, twisting through the door and leaving it swinging open as he tried his best to waltz around the corner and down the aisle of two tables filled to the ceiling with his collection of herbs. If it weren’t for his constant care of the plants, they would have blocked out the sun with their tendrils and gargantuan leaves that rivaled the ones in the forest. 

He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket—his list of tasks for that day on top of medicine for Coran, which brought him to the end of his greenhouse that overlooked the street below. He glanced down at the walkway outside of his shop, watching a woman walk by the entrance and peer in at the CLOSED sign before walking off. Alfor reached across the aisle to pluck berries from a vine crawling up a trellis that leant against the foggy glass. 

He spent his hour relatively alone—if he didn’t count Coran as company—and worked on his queue of prescriptions for that day. He capped one of the containers of encapsulated pills and tucked it into a drawstring bag just as he heard something thump against the ceiling over his head. He glanced up at it, wondering what could have made that sound—

“Shoot,” he hissed, scrambling away from his workbench and to the stairs in time to see a bit of red hair fall out of view from the window over the staircase. “Coran? Are you all right?” he called out, rushing up the stairs and checking the time on the wall above the entrance. It’d barely been half an hour—

Something _furry_ rammed into his legs, sending him crying out and staggering over the bright orange cat now scrambling on his floor. Coran’s fur was in all directions, poofing up and out in time with the spark of light that emitted from him. The glow encompassed him, and popped in a spark that flashed before Alfor’s eyes. His hips bumped into the table as the light faded, and Coran came stumbling out of it, shrieking, “Oh my! Here we go—” on his way collapsing to the floor again.

Alfor jumped, clutching a hand to his heart as his guest rolled over on the carpet, gasping, pressing a hand over his forehead, and then over his eyes as he moaned, “I was… not expecting this turn of events.”

“Nor was I,” Alfor laughed. “Are you feeling all right? You were just passed out.”

“Fine, I think,” he confessed, and Alfor hurried to the table where the prescriptions were. He shook out a pill from Coran’s jar and knelt beside the slightly dazzled man on his carpet.

“Here, take this. I’ve got enough to hopefully help you heal faster,” he explained as he got a glass of water for Coran to wash the pill down with. After that was done, Coran laid back down and stared wildly ahead. “Are you… sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I feel like… I’ve just gotten the effects of a pure cup of black coffee,” he confessed, wide, vibrant blue eyes flickering over the ceiling before he was lunging up. He hopped to his feet as if the task was just as simple as raising his arms, which he then lifted up to the ceiling, stretched, and planted his hands on his hips. 

“I feel—” Coran started, just as a flash of light flitted over him and popped, dropping him into the form of a full-grown _bear_.

Alfor immediately shrieked and ran towards the greenhouse as the bear’s front paws dropped to the rug with a _thud!_ Nothing seemed immediately rabid about the cat, but he couldn’t trust the instincts of a bear trapped in a house. 

_So I guess the potion didn’t work after all_ , he mused in dismay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I made a little survey today](https://girlskylark.typeform.com/to/zkiD8u) to help me better understand what interests you guys for future works! It helps keep my creativity going.


	2. all the most annoying little things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some classic Coran tomfoolery with a side of Zarkon x Alfor bromance :D

 

Just as Alfor was about to panic over the materials he even had to _make_ a second sleep potion of that complexity, something pushed into the door, claws scraping against the wood. Alfor squeaked, leaping away from the handle and turning, accidentally bumping into one of the tables as the glass on the door window fogged up with Coran’s bear breath. 

When it faded, Coran’s bizarre yet tender blue eyes stared at him, hardly the danger Alfor expected to find. He half-wished Zarkon was there as backup as he started towards the door again. He _begged_ for the potion to work as he turned the door handle and pulled it open. 

Coran’s front legs dropped down in front of him, shaking his haunches as he twisted around with his nose turned up. He turned away, fur coat shifting as he headed for the rug. Alfor watched him from just inside the greenhouse, clinging to the doorframe as the bear in his house sat in his kitchen and looked at Alfor, opening and closing its large jaws lined with rigid teeth.

“Hungry?” he asked, and Coran nodded his large, squarish bear head. “I… don’t have much of anything at the moment. Zar’s off at the store picking up some groceries.”

Coran clamped his mouth shut at the exact moment the light rippled over his fur and burst, dropping into the shape of a small, fluffy creature with large, pinched round ears. Alfor laughed. “I don’t think these are the effects of the medicine I gave you. The infection is probably wearing off now.”

Alfor wasn’t entirely certain of the species Coran shifted to, but he was now scurrying across the floor, skidding on the wood with a fluffy gray tail following him. 

Thankfully when Coran shifted back, he was out from under the dining table. He popped back up, staggering, and collapsing onto the couch where he stayed. His eyes were dazed, and he tried gathering his bearings by rubbing his hands over his face with a sigh.

“I feel normal aside from the fact that I can’t anticipate when and what I’ll turn into next, it seems,” he said as Alfor pulled over a chair to sit next to the couch.

Alfor drew his eyes away from the stitching on Coran’s arm where an arrow was once lodged. He lifted his gaze up to Coran’s and said, “Considering you’re no longer a danger to anyone, I’d call this a _massive_ improvement, don’t you think?”

“Improvement—yes, but _cured_ is a different matter,” he sighed, flopping to the side.

“How are you feeling? Headache? Nauseous?”

“Hungry and I wanna be alone,” he moaned, turning on his side and flicking the blanket over his head. 

It felt almost as though Coran had slammed a door in Alfor’s face. _You can’t expect_ everyone _to be happy_ , he told himself, shaking his head and pushing himself to his feet. He couldn’t pressure Coran to talk to him, especially with the way he was now—crotchety, hungry, and on edge from the shifts.

He went to the kitchen and shuffled around in the cabinets, coming up with a few gems that could be mashed together for something to hold Coran over. He set a pot on the stove and struck a fire by snapping his two fingers. When he glanced over at Coran, he found the man peering up over the edge of the armrest. Coran squeaked and ducked back down, churning the blankets around him until he was a snug cocoon.

“Where do you normally live?” Alfor asked, and waited patiently for his guest to answer.

He listened to the silence of Coran debating whether or not to answer until he finally said, “That depends. Where am I now?”

“Dalterion. It’s on the edge of the Bakku Bay.”

“So… we must be by the Sound?” he asked, and Alfor made a so-so gesture with his hand, glancing over at where Coran was now craning his neck up to see Alfor open up a bag of oats.

“Taujeer Sound is on one side of us—there’s a lot of farming in that direction, but the city runs alongside the river.”

“My home is by the waterfalls that run into the Sound,” he said. “Have you seen them before?”

“No, unfortunately. I don’t leave Dalterion all that often unless it’s for work,” he confessed, wincing a little. He always admired people who managed to travel great distances without losing their minds like he would. 

Off by the couch, Coran grumbled something and turned around, brooding against the couch cushions. The way Coran acted was off-putting, but Alfor couldn’t put the words to it until he was scooping oatmeal into a bowl amongst slivers of apples. “I always assumed… that shapeshifters were the bridge between humans and nature,” he confessed as he brought the bowl over and set it on the chair he left beside the couch.

Coran turned over a little, eyes peeking out from under the blanket. “Really? What gave you that weird idea?”

Alfor shrugged, still frowning as he scratched a hand on his chin and watched Coran take up the bowl and begin eating. “I could have _sworn_ I read about it somewhere…”

“If it was written by a human, then I’d say it was full of lies,” he said between bites. 

“So… I take it you don’t like humans much,” he asked, lowering himself onto the rug beside the chair. 

Coran narrowed his eyes at Alfor before saying, “You’re all right for a human, I’ll give you that much.”

Alfor laughed, tipping his head to the side as he watched Coran eat and stare skeptically at him. “What makes you dislike humans as much as you do?”

“You would too if you hear what the animals have to say about you,” he said.

“What do you—” he started, interrupted by the door to the shop opening.

He looked back at the door, and then to Coran, whose attention was now elsewhere. Alfor pushed up to his feet and hurried to the stairs where he heard Zarkon’s voice call out, “Hey, I’m back!”

“No need to yell it—I’m right here,” Alfor scoffed, taking one of the bags from him and heading back to the kitchen. “Coran’s up. Coran, you remember Zarkon.”

“Vaguely,” he answered, and Zarkon gave him a droll stare as he handed a bag of fresh bread to Alfor. 

Coran sat the oatmeal on the chair, pushed the blanket off of himself, and moved to stand up. The instant he was on his feet, though, a wisp of light flashed and sent Zarkon scrambling back against the counter, startled at the sight of a dog that looked startlingly similar to Beezer. Alfor was so surprised he laughed louder than he intended, slapping his hand over his mouth as Zarkon looked at him, jaw dropping. 

“He’s harmless, really,” Alfor insisted. “He just can’t control his shifts now.”

“That doesn’t sound h-harm— _less_ —!” he stuttered to a halt as Coran plodded over on four paws. Zarkon pulled his hands up to avoid having them bit off. 

Coran hopped up onto his hind legs and clapped his front paws against Zarkon’s chest, sticking his nose in the air and letting out a howl that sounded like Beezer when he alerted them to a visitor at the door. 

“See?” Alfor said. “Not so bad.”

Coran dropped back down and circled back to the couch, where he leapt up, bit the blanket between his teeth, and nudged it over his backend. Zarkon rolled his eyes at them and repeated mockingly, “ _Not so bad, is it?_ ” 

 

. . .

 

“It’s been _three days_ and he still isn’t better?” Zarkon hissed at Alfor three days after Coran consumed the cure, and yet was still on-and-off shifting like crazy. The pills didn’t seem to be doing much, but perhaps it was exactly what was holding off the madness that turned Coran crazy in the first place. “How long are you going to let him _stay here_?”

“Until he’s _better_. I’m not just going to leave him to figure this out himself,” Alfor insisted. He brought his eyes up from his desk to where Zarkon stood over him, eyebrows up to his hairline. “ _What?_ I’m doing all I can—we can’t risk giving him two doses of the same potion as before!”

“Why the hell not? I mean, it worked partway the last time.”

“Even as a shapeshifter, it’s too much for his body to handle. The effects aren’t _exact_ , necessarily, and I more or less… tossed it all together…”

“You’re _insane_ ,” Zarkon said, and when Alfor all but rolled his eyes, his friend only seethed more. “You’re insane! You can’t just _do_ shit like that and expect it to work—”

“It’s different when you’re using magic—”

“ _This_ is why Trigel is taking your business away!” he exploded, and the abhorrence on Alfor’s face was enough for Zarkon to backtrack. Regardless, though, something burned so hot in Alfor’s chest that it turned cold in a matter of seconds. “What I _mean_ is—that Trigel’s methods are _certain_ , you can’t blame people for wanting to trust her—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he said, voice low.

“Alfor, you know I trust your methods with my life, but all I’m saying—”

“I said _don’t!_ ” he yelled. “I don’t want to talk about this! Trigel’s methods _may_ be certain, but they’re ineffective and temporary just like everything else people try to cover tradition up with.” With that, Alfor pushed his chair away from the desk and twisted it around. He knew it was childish, but he couldn’t _stand_ to be compared to that—that _unconventional_ woman! He could hardly tolerate her brash ideologies that so conflicted with his own studies. How could she expect her work to go _anywhere_ without the aid of the so well established mechanisms of magic? 

What was worse was that Zarkon _knew_ how he felt about Trigel, and yet he brought her up more often than either of them cared for. Alfor tended to blame it on Zarkon’s ability to hang on to information—whether it be good or bad—and incidentally let it loose by complete accident. 

When Zarkon said nothing, Alfor crossed his arms and said, “I know you aren’t insulting me. It just _feels_ like you are.”

“I hadn’t meant to,” he said, voice slightly closer than before. Alfor cut his gaze to the side, eyeing Zarkon where he stood alongside the corner of his desk. He turned his gaze away with a deep, drawn out exhale. “Look—Why don’t I stay the night? You said yourself that we don’t get shapeshifters around here often. We don’t know what to expect from him.”

“Zar…”

“I’m serious.”

“As am I!” he cried out, standing from his chair all at once to turn on Zarkon. “You should go home for tonight. Honestly.”

“But—”

“No ‘ _but’_ s! Why are you being so difficult about this?” Alfor asked, laughing a little until he brought his attention back up to Zarkon’s eyes, and the hesitance there. “What is it?”

“It’s just—I have a date. Tonight,” he said, and swiftly backtracked when he saw Alfor’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “What I _mean_ is—it’s not _certain_ , just tentative plans. You know how it is.” 

“And… your plan was to go on your date and come back here? _Zarkon_ , you _work_ in the morning.”

“So what?”

Alfor’s pinched his fingers against the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You’re trying to back out of your date, aren’t you? Who’s it with? Honerva?”

When Zarkon didn’t say anything, Alfor sighed again. “You can’t ditch her. You’ve been dancing around her for _years_ now.”

“I know, but it’s not like she’s any better!” he whined.

“Okay, well, now you’re just being a child,” Alfor accused, and laughed when Zarkon practically stomped his foot at him. “I’m serious. Go on your date, don’t stay out too late, and _go to work in the morning_.”

Just as Zarkon was about to open his mouth with yet another snarky comment, Alfor raised his eyebrows, silencing him and all his arguments. He relented with a sigh, running a hand through his short black hair before glancing one last time at Alfor. “Fine. But I’ll be back in the morning.”

Alfor laughed, rolling his eyes as he stepped around the opposite side of the desk. “Do your _job_ for once,” he said as Zarkon shrugged uselessly. 

“I thought taking care of you was my job,” he said.

“Really? I think—Does that go the _other_ way around?” Alfor said, gesturing with his hands as his friend wandered closer to the door. 

“ _I_ wouldn’t say that. Who’s the one who babysat you that one time? When you went to a house party unsupervised? Downed, like, a dozen shots?” he asked, and Alfor gasped at him, chasing him out of the door as Zarkon took off laughing. 

As Alfor chased him through the living room and down the stairs, he yelled, “It was _not_ a dozen!”

“Oh, right, because you couldn’t _remember_ the _last seven—_ ”

“You’re in _sufferable_!” he said, howling with laughter as he scampered around stacks of books and hopped to the first floor. 

“Am I?” Zarkon asked, turning around, panting a little from the race. “Do you find me insufferable most days?”

“No—of course not,” Alfor said. “I… appreciate your moments of insufferableness.” 

“Wow thanks.”

“Just as I imagine _you_ appreciate my moments of insufferableness. Because I know I have my moments,” he said. “Like… today.”

Zarkon laughed and held up both arms. “Cheers to being insufferable.” Alfor rolled his eyes and accepted the brief hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?” 

“Yeah, sounds great.” Zarkon clapped him on the back before pulling away and unlocking the door. As he opened it and disappeared behind it, Alfor called out, “No sexual reproduction on the first date!” which was promptly followed by a, “Oh, fuck you!” from Zarkon. Alfor locked the door, laughing to himself. 

He started back up the stairs, only to stop at the sight of Coran standing there grinning like a maniac. 

“Did you two have a ‘ _thing’_ at some time?” he asked.

Alfor’s shoulders bunched up as he cried out, “ _No!_ Gods—what gave you _that_ idea!”

“You bicker like an old married— _eep!_ ” Coran shrieked, ducking to avoid a book Alfor chucked up the stairs at him. In the panic, it triggered a shift that turned Coran into a mouse for a split second. He didn’t even have time to land on the ground by the time he shifted back and scrambled dizzily back into the apartment.

“If anyone’s insufferable, it’s _you!_ ” Alfor joked, laughing as Coran slumped back on the couch and groaned as he bundled back up into his blanket.

 

. . .

 

Some days, tasks just seemed unbearable despite how necessary they were. Most days, though, he didn’t mind working out, showering, or cooking, but it was starting to seem like every off-day ended in a night out with Honerva. He wished he had the motivation to continue on with his day, and spending the evening with Alfor always tended to help, but his chest still tightened, solidified, and turned to rock as he turned down Honerva’s street.

She lived in an apartment above one of Alfor’s favorite tea shops. It also meant that her apartment smelled like spices, and it stuck to her clothes and every time Zarkon offered her his arm, she’d take it and leave the residue of cinnamon on his coat sleeve. This late at night, though, the store was long since closed, and the red door beside it was marked with Honerva’s address number from where it sat up on the stoop. 

A car sputtered bye, leaving a track of dust in front of Zarkon where he stood across the street from Honerva’s apartment. He couldn’t remember the last time they _really_ spoke because their schedules constantly conflicted, she worked on the other side of the city, and he was always running around elsewhere for work. It didn’t help that they were both full-time—Honerva with her inventions, and Zarkon with his police work. 

He stood there long enough to feel his legs grow tired, and he dreaded taking another step. He worked until dinner when he went to visit Alfor, and now… 

_It’d just be easiest to get eight hours of sleep_ , he moaned internally, wanting to slap himself for even considering it. There was just something about Honerva that made him dread hanging out with her until they moment they started talking—at that point, he could spend the rest of the night listening to her talk about her plans, raving over some concept she and her coworkers were working on. 

He remembered that same sort of instant where they’d been in university together. They didn’t start hanging out until Blaytz tricked them both into becoming friends. Her class projects were always elaborative experiments founded on her own complex ideas, and she’d stand in the middle of the study room, arms in the air, yelling, “But the externalities are too great because we can’t account for the number of differences between the subjects without conducting a full year-long analysis on them each _individually—_ ”

Just thinking about that moment had him taking a step off the curb, but his eyes drew upward to her apartment window at that same time. Her lights were on, and he saw her walk by, silhouetted by the light until she reached the opposite side of the room, partially obscured by the curtain. Her hands were in her hair, tying it back. She plucked a pin out from between her lips and cut it through her bun, securing it in place.

He exhaled through clenched teeth, bunching his hands into fists in his pockets. She always looked so… _regal_ , and untouchable, and _unattainable_. He pictured her like every other dream he had that was too tremendous to fathom. Like he shouldn’t even try. 

So he turned to head home for the night.

He was a mess of hopeless sighs until he unlocked his front door and hurried in, calling out for Beezer in the process. He couldn’t hear Beezer’s paws against the wood, so he hung up his jacket and sought to investigate what his dog was up to.

Beezer wasn’t in the bedroom, the living room, or the mudroom, and when he eventually reached the kitchen, he found the trash tipped over, spilled out on the floor. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groaned, propping up the can and stepping back from the mess with a groan. “Beezer!” he called out.

There were still bits of food uneaten, which was bizarre considering Zarkon had just fed Beezer before leaving for his date with Honerva. He looked to the phone, debating calling her now, but was distracted by a whine from the living room. 

“Beezer?” he said, leaning through the kitchen archway to the living room. He already checked, but he hadn’t looked _behind_ the furniture, where Beezer was laying against a cold patch on the exposed brick. He pushed the couch back to make room for himself to crouch beside his dog.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” he asked, rubbing Beezer’s back as the pup flopped his head back on the floor before gathering the energy to stand up. Zarkon followed, and went to the kitchen for a bowl of water to fill for Beezer. Beezer stared at the bowl as Zarkon rang up a number, studying his dog and thinking about how strange it was to find Beezer _lying behind the couch_.

“Hello, this is Honerva speaking,” her voice sounded from the other end of the line.

“Hey, this is Zarkon—”

“Where are you? Is everything okay?” she asked. _Straight to the point, as always_ , he mused.

He closed his eyes, running a hand over the side of his face as he said, “Yeah—well, _no_ , not really. Beezer’s sick and I don’t want to leave him alone. He’s just… acting strangely.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, no. If he doesn’t get better by tomorrow I’ll probably ask Alfor about him,” he said, shaking his head. “But… I’m so sorry, for not being able to make it. I know we had this planned since the last time we couldn’t go out—”

“It’s fine, Zar. Tell Beezer I miss him and I hope he gets better,” she said, and hung up before Zarkon could say anything else.

 

. . .

 

The following day, Alfor emerged out from under his quilted blanket with a yawn. He scratched at his mess of white bedhead and turned to roll off the mattress—and he would have succeeded, had his legs not been caught in the blankets pinned beneath a _panther’s body_. 

“What in the world—” Alfor started, stumbling away from the bed and against the window sill. The morning air was muggy from the fog that rolled in during the summers, and Alfor could feel it seeping into his night shirt through the open gap of his window—which was _far_ more open than he remembered it being the night before…

“ _Coran!_ ” he shrieked, yanking forcefully on the blankets to move the massive black feline body hogging all the covers. Coran hopped up and leapt from the mattress as Alfor cried out, “What are you _doing in here?_ Shouldn’t you be out _there?_ ” he cried out, jabbing a finger at the closed, locked bedroom door. 

As he got up off the floor with a huff, he headed for the wardrobe for a change of clothes for the morning. He made a point of opening the bedroom door and glaring subtly at Coran, who lifted one blue eye and promptly shut it to pretend he was still sleeping despite the fact that his head was completely off the mattress. 

“I honestly can’t believe how pompous you are,” Alfor remarked as he turned away and disappeared into the bathroom. By the time he returned in his outfit for that day, Coran was gone. Alfor studied the bed where his guest left a _lovely_ fur-ridden indent on his quilt and aggressively tore it off the bed to wash for later. 

“You left hair _all over my—_ ” he blurted out, stopping as he stomped into the kitchen and found Coran laying in starfish-formation an inch from where Alfor was bound to stomp on his leg. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Coran shrugged, placing his hands over his stomach and rubbing the fabric of his shirt where it covered one of the wounds from earlier that week. Alfor could see where there was a pockmark on his oblique from a bullet.

“Who, me? I’m just hanging out.”

“On the floor?” Alfor deadpanned, crossing his arms. “Are you going to prevent me from making breakfast?”

“I don’t know—”

“Are you going to prevent me from making breakfast _for you_.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Coran said, rolling over to make room for Alfor. 

Alfor grabbed a pill and a glass of water, and set it on the floor beside Coran’s head. As he set to work making breakfast, he listened for Coran to gulp the pill down. Afterwards, Alfor was forced to ignore the sounds of Coran’s sighs from the floor behind him. He rolled his eyes and whisked a batch of eggs in a bowl until it was a liquidy orange. He set it aside and scooped a bit of butter onto the skillet to prepare it for the bread he sawed through on a wooden cutting board. He turned back to the egg bowl with two slices of bread in his hands and—

An orange tabby cat was sitting on the counter, paw treading _dangerously_ close to the bowl. Those blue eyes were passive but all at once aggressive as Coran nudged at the bowl, scooting in an inch closer to the edge.

“You wouldn’t,” Alfor gasped, and instantly yelped when Coran nudged it further. “That wasn’t a challenge! Stop that! _Coran—!_ ”

He flung his hands up with the slices of bread as the bowl tipped. He managed to suspend the lip of the bowl, sloshing the eggs, but keeping most of it intact where it was now caught between Alfor’s magic and the countertop.

He lunged forward as Coran leapt from the counter and disappeared under the table. His telekinesis could only last so long, and he managed to catch the bowl before it could fall completely. He pushed it back onto the counter and turned with a snarl back to the room. 

Coran was gone, though. 

_Making more mischief, no doubt_ , he grumbled internally as he dropped the bread in the bowl and coated it with what remained of the eggs.

When it came time to _actually_ eat, Alfor _still_ couldn’t find Coran until he paced the greenhouse and leapt at the finch that came darting out from under a wall of leaves. He groaned aloud when Coran landed on his hair. “What are we going to do if you ever turn into a fish?” he complained as he wandered back to the kitchen and to the table.

Coran floated down and pecked at the toast once before turning his beak up to Alfor. “What is it?” he said, tired as Coran stabbed at the bread again and looked up at him. “What? Do you want me to cut it for you?” 

Alfor ended up cutting Coran’s toast up for him before he ever got around to eating his own meal. By the time Alfor finished up, Coran was barely through a piece of it. He left the table to get ready for the day, and to pack up deliveries he planned to take out that morning. He stuffed them all into a basket and checked the temperature outside by stretching his hand out through his open bedroom window. He had about an hour before the fog was bound to disperse.

He wrapped a cloth over the supplies in the basket and started towards the stairs. “I’ll be back in an hour or so and—”

He was cut off by the audible pop of Coran’s magic zapping him back to his human form. “Where are you going? Can I come with?” he asked, chasing after Alfor as he hurried down to the shop.

“No, you’re still unstable magic-wise,” he said.

“Please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease _please_?” Coran begged, slipping between Alfor and the door to drape himself over it and the door handle. Alfor clutched his keys in his fist to keep from doing something rash.

“You _can’t_ , Coran—”

“I’ve been inside for three—now _four_ —whole days. My wounds are fine! Even this one’s looking a bit better!” he cried out, tugging the collar on his shirt to show Alfor the purple mark on his shoulder. It might have looked _better_ , but it didn’t look _good_ by any means. 

Alfor was about to say as much when he met eyes with Coran, and crumbled under those glistening blue eyes. It didn’t help that he always had a tough time saying no to redheads. 

“ _Fine_. But you can’t go out in that,” he groaned, turning back to the stairs. He should have ran faster to the door. Maybe he could have made it out and locked the door before Coran made it down.

Coran yelped in excitement, practically prancing up the stairs behind Alfor. 

It took _ages_ for Coran to decide on something, and by the time they made it outside, they only had half an hour left in the fog. _Perfect_ , Alfor grumbled internally as he locked the front door.

When he turned around, Coran was already missing. “Well isn’t this just even _better_ ,” he whined, throwing his arm down and pocketing his keys. He scanned the street for Coran and found the man loitering by the nearest alleyways. He grabbed Coran by the back of the collar and tugged him back onto the sidewalk.

The narrow street Alfor’s apothecary resided on spilled onto the main road where faded white storefronts met cobbled and brick streets, and where the boulevard cut between the streets. Massive, flowering blossoms of trees branched out and webbed around the buildings where, in a matter of minutes, they were shielded by the sun peppering between the leaves and dappling the ground at their feet. Spots of light glittered over Coran’s mused bush of red hair pulled back from his forehead, and dipping along his hollowed cheeks. In the sunlight, Alfor could tell just how pale Coran was from spending all that time in-and-out of shifts.

They cut between two buildings and meandered around the fencing of someone’s garden that lined the stone path that would take them up higher up the hill. Alfor kept his eyes forward, mainly to ignore how boyishly Coran oohed and ahed at the street below, or the streets above where red rooftops rose high over their heads, speckled with light and moisture that dripped on their heads. 

“I never knew you could see the forest from here,” Coran said, causing Alfor to pause at the top of the hill to look back.

Coran was leaning against the mortared ledge preventing them from tumbling over the hill. It was collecting ivy that mimicked the green pastures beyond the city that rustled in the wind. Alfor hummed thoughtfully at it, noting the edge of the forest that seemed so small in comparison to those magnificent leaves he and Zarkon walked under just four days prior.

“Yes, well, I can’t imagine you’ve ever _been_ to the city, have you?” he asked, looking back at Coran.

“Not this one, no,” he said, pushing away from the ledge just as a biker zipped past Alfor, buffeting the edge of his jacket. Coran leapt back, clutching to the edge as the biker passed him, zipping down the walkway to where it spilled out onto the streets. Coran looked back up at him, eyes wide, and Alfor couldn’t help himself—he laughed until Coran caught up and flicked him on the arm for it.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a bike,” he said, crossing his arms and sticking his nose in the air. “You can’t blame me.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just—When did you last visit a city?” Alfor asked, walking alongside Coran then as they began to approach their first stop—a house crafted out of brilliant red brick with ivy lining the edges of it. 

“What makes you think I never lived in one?” Coran asked.

“I don’t know—I just… assumed…”

“No, you’re right. I haven’t lived in a town in over… I want to say over a decade now. I left when I was about thirteen.”

“Why?”

“Because I found out I was a shapeshifter,” he confessed, and shook his head a little. “Spontaneously. Wasn’t like I was expecting it. And all of nature really… convinced me that the city life is kind of pointless. So I just left.”

“Oh. I’m… sorry you feel that way.”

“No need to be sorry. Wasn’t really people like _you_ who made me think like that,” Coran insisted, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers as Alfor slowed at the stoop of the brick house. “Is this… one of your stops then?”

“Um, yes. It is. Would you mind… hanging back here while I take care of this?” Alfor asked, wincing a little as he said it. _Subtle way of saying it_ , he mused bitterly.

Thankfully, though, Coran wasn’t put off by not being wanted during this exchange. So while Coran wandered off to investigate the ledge again, Alfor climbed the stoop and knocked on the door. In the time it took for Alfor to chat with his patient about the medication and exchange it for the cost, Coran disappeared again. 

Alfor walked back to the street with a sigh and looked around himself before saying, “Unbelievable.” 

He wandered back to the ledge where he last saw Coran and figured his bizarre, shapeshifting guest was likely off catching the hot summer breeze between the two wings of a hawk. He wondered what life would be like having Coran’s capabilities, but it felt… _frivolous_ thinking like that. It gave him the sensation of _middle school_ when thoughts like that seemed relevant at the time. Since it was never seen as possible, he pushed it from his brain. Though, with magic, _everything_ seemed possible… so why not shapeshifting?

Alfor plucked out his next delivery from his basket and turned back to the road. He regretted moving at that very instant, because he recognized one of the passerbys instantly. Seeing her always gave him a sense of dread, and since Zarkon mentioned Trigel’s name, that loathing irony just seemed to continue.

“Alfor!” Trigel called out, screeching her bike to a halt on the other side of the road. She stood it against a tree, staggering off the seat as Alfor rubbed a hand down the side of his face and over the short crop of hair on his chin. With it, he dragged on a fake smile.

“Trigel! Nice to see you again, as always,” he said, glancing down at her satchel and the fact that he could very clearly see exactly what she was up to. “Making runs as well?”

“Oh! So observant! Yes, I am. I prefer doing my errands in the morning.”

“As do I.”

“What a coincidence!” she laughed, and Alfor tried to do the same. “Well, how has your day been? Honerva says you’re treating that shapeshifter.”

“I am. His name is Coran,” he said, swaying on his heels as he glanced off to the side. _Please don’t spring up out of nowhere, Coran_ , he thought desperately as Trigel began talking again, and forced his attention back.

“Well, I have to say, I’m a bit surprised that you took in a shapeshifter of all creatures. I always did peg you as the animal-lover type.”

“I don’t see what would give you that impression, but—”

“Wouldn’t it be incredible, though, to just… observe your shapeshifter in action? Has he shifted around you before? What’s it like?” she asked, and in the process of her rising excitement, she was suddenly practically chest-to-chest with him as he blinked erratically and tried to change the subject.

“I don’t know about that. It’s nothing different from our magic—”

“You mean _their_ magic? By ‘our magic’, you’re suggesting that it’s ‘ours’ when really it’s ‘their’s’. You see what I mean?” she said, smiling as if she _wasn’t_ a vexatious _beast_. Any talk about magic with Trigel had Alfor’s insides crawling.

“Yes, I see what you mean, _however_ —”

He stopped with a flinch, recognizing the _pop_! that sounded behind him. Trigel jumped several paces away from Alfor, her eyes wide behind her rounded specs as she observed the fact that Coran was now standing behind Alfor, tipping his head to the side to see Trigel and say, “Are those glasses?” 

Trigel brought a hand up to her face and stammered, “Um, yes. Yes they are. And you must be the shapeshifter.”

“Coran,” he corrected, reaching out to shake her hand. She raised an eyebrow at him, laying a hand on her chest as she reached with the other to shake his hand. Unbelievable. She couldn’t be more assuming of Coran, could she? Acting surprised that he was even capable of using pleasantries like a handshake. 

Alfor was fuming by the time Trigel excused herself, most likely to jot the experience down in one of her “scientific journals.” 

“I can’t stand the arrogance of that woman,” he seethed after they were a greater distance away from where her bike descended down the hill. “She’s so—so _deprecative_ and _opinionated_. Like her intellect is somehow _greater_ because she—because she doesn’t use _magic_! Like magic’s a _bad_ thing—”

“I take it you don’t like this woman,” Coran commented, appearing startled by Alfor’s ranting. “What’s her name again? She never mentioned it.”

Alfor brushed a hand over his hair as he sighed, “ _Trigel_. She fancies herself a _genius_. Also, where did you go? One minute you were there and the next you weren’t.”

“Ah, I just took a little dive off the ledge over there. The view is nice.”

“Just as I suspected,” he hummed, calming down a bit. He could still feel his heart racing in anger. 

Coran accompanied him to the next house, and the one after that, and the one after that, and spent time waiting for Alfor out on the edge of fence lines, or off investigating store fronts and the thresholds of taverns. Alfor went to collect him after each stop, and would constantly worry over what form he’d find Coran in next—an alligator? a tiger? a moose? Whatever the case, they only had one run-in with terrifying bystanders with the form of a sheep waddling down the sidewalk to where Alfor slapped his hand over his face and sigh, and try to avoid the stares from people walking by. It wasn’t every day Alfor was confused with a sheep herder.

He’d have to get used to it, though, if he planned on seeing Coran through to the end of his infection.


	3. how to use healing magic 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honerva has a chat with Alfor, and Coran shows off some of his healing magic *jazz hands*

When Alfor returned home with Coran at his side, he was surprised to find someone waiting outside the shop door beneath the window awning. He’d recognize her anywhere, and with the sleek purple umbrella she always sported, it was hard to miss her from afar. It was perhaps the most frilly accessory she had, and even then it wasn’t all that flamboyant. It was simple, like her, and like everything Zarkon admired about her.

“Honerva, what are you doing here?” Alfor asked, startled as he approached her and found her attention split between himself and Coran. “Oh, excuse me—Coran, this is Honerva. Honerva, this is Coran.”

“Nice to formally meet you. I think… we started off on bad terms,” she said, shaking Coran’s hand.

“I’d say so. Most everything is a bit of a fog now,” he confessed, glancing at Alfor as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I can’t even imagine—what it’s like, anyways,” she said. “Zar says the infection caused all of that… _disaster_. I’m glad you’re feeling better now, though.”

“Still recovering, actually,” he corrected, shaking his head. “But the _bloodthirst_ level is definitely gone. So no need to worry about that anymore, I’d say.”

Alfor rolled his eyes as Honerva smiled politely and turned to him. “But… I actually came here to talk to you. About Zarkon. Alone, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh!” Alfor blurted out, scrambling for his keys and surging to the door. “Right, um, well… I’m not all that great in the _advice_ department—”

“I never assumed that. Ever,” she said, and Coran snorted from behind her and covered his mouth when she pegged him with one of her _looks_. 

Alfor unlocked the door and let them all inside where Coran lingered by the door until Alfor gestured to the stairs. “Right! Right, okay. I’ll just be upstairs then,” Coran exclaimed, scurrying to the stairs and up to the living room. He shut the door behind him, which left a hollow echo to resonate against the exposed brick of Alfor’s shop.

Honerva looked back to where Alfor stood wringing his keys in his hand. “Interesting company you have now,” she commented. “It’s been a while since you had a roommate. Do you think he’s sticking around?”

“I don’t know. He lives along the edge of the Taujeer Sound, it seems? I’m sure he’s missing home as much as anyone else would,” Alfor said, and she seemed less than willing to believe it. “He’s still human, Honerva. He didn’t _always_ live in the wild.”

“Did he… tell you this himself?”

“…It’s implied.”

“So this is like university all over again, hm? You never know who you end up rooming with—it could be a serial killer, they could be a weird shapeshifter who lives in the forest—”

“Now you’re just being unrealistic and changing the subject here,” Alfor sighed. “What’s this about—Zarkon? I haven’t seen him since last night before he went on his date with you.” _Because I hope he’s actually working_ …

She tipped her umbrella against the wall and rubbed her forehead with her other hand.“Yes, well, that’s great to _know_ because he never showed up! He made a lame excuse about his _dog_ and… I was _hoping_ he had some better excuse he gave to you, but…”

“But this isn’t the first time, is it? He’s come complaining to me about _you_ flaking on him.”

“Blunt as per usual, huh Alfor?” she remarked bitterly as she paced around the room, in between tables, and overall, making Alfor anxious that she’d tip something over. “I just—I get the impression that I intimidate him? Which I can’t fully comprehend because we’ve been friends since _forever—_ ”

“Well, university—”

“That isn’t the _point—_ ”

“Even then he was intimidated by you, though,” he insisted. “You have to admit, you scared away Blaytz that one time by punching him straight in the family jewels.”

“They needed to be downsized. You have to agree with me on that one—”

“You are… just as crude as you say Zarkon is,” he accused, and she scoffed, brushing a hand over her bun as she raised an eyebrow at him from across the room. “I’m serious! It’s no wonder you two avoid each other like you’re afraid of one another!”

“I’m not _afraid_ of Zarkon—that’s just ridiculous,” she sputtered. “Well, I mean, you’ve been friends with him for as long as I’ve known you two. Is _he_ afraid of _me_? You know him better than I do, especially now since he seems adamant on not even talking to me for more than two seconds.”

“You know how he is,” Alfor huffed, still twisting his keys nervously between his hands. In all honesty, Honerva made him more nervous than Zarkon ever could. It was bizarre because he always considered Honerva to be a nearly exact copy of Zarkon’s personality, and couldn’t entirely figure out _what_ about her made him feel so off-center. 

She raised an eyebrow at him and said, “Um… clearly I don’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“He’s just… a very anxious person. Give him some credit for trying. I feel like _when_ you two finally decide to go steady, he’ll feel less anxious about everything falling apart.”

She hummed, cupping a hand beneath her chin before declaring, “You know, you’re awfully good at advice. I never would have expected it.”

“I wouldn’t say _that—_ ”

“Do you think you could supervise one of our dates?” she asked, startling Alfor into a sputtering mess of half-excuses that she quickly cut down. “You said yourself that Zar is an anxious person. If you were there, neither of us would feel the need to run off, you know?”

“But then it will be like every other time you two have hung out—you can’t always stick to group settings,” he sighed. “I _really_ shouldn’t—Zarkon would never agree to it—”

“Just… try?” Honerva pleaded, wincing even as she did so. “You have my approval, anyways.”

He closed his eyes with a sigh, pushing both hands over his face even with his keys pinched between his fingers. “ _Fine_. I’ll ask him, but I’m only doing this because you asked and I care about you,” he moaned between the palms of his hands.

“You’re so sweet, Alfor,” she said, “but I’d be careful if I were you—people tend to take advantage of that sweetness.”

“I know, because it just happened,” he sighed, peeking at her from between his fingers. She smiled at him, and clapped him on the arm.

“Now… I’ll just be off. I have work to do at the mills,” she said, starting for her umbrella and opening the door.

Alfor followed after her, curiously. “The mill? What are you doing there?” he asked as she popped open the umbrella and swung it over her head to block out the sunlight. A cast of purple fell over her pale summer jacket. 

She winked at said, “It’s confidential. But I bet if you gave Blaytz one of your little saucy smiles, he’d tell you all about it.”

“I… do _not_ have a saucy smile,” he countered, crossing his arms as Honerva laughed. “ _Honerva!_ I do _not!_ ”

“Keep telling yourself that,” she said. “It was nice seeing you, Alfor. I look forward to having you force Zar into a sit-down dinner for once.”

Alfor groaned miserably in the shade of his awning. Honerva was about to walk off when he remembered something, gasping, and holding her still by the arm. “Wait, let me give you something,” he insisted, hurrying back into his shop and rustling around in a draw for a packet of condensed salts. When he came back, Honerva was moaning and groaning about what a sap he was. “The nymphs at the mill love them! Just toss ‘em into the water, it makes them happy,” he insisted.

“Remember what I said about you being _too_ sweet,” she huffed, grabbing the neat little package of salt. “I still don’t see what you love so much about the nymphs.”

“They’re precious little things,” he said.

“Again— _too_ sweet,” she said, pocketing the salts and started off down the street. “Bye Alfor…!”

“Goodbye Honerva—have a nice day!” he called out.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist and decided that today was as good as any other day to open the store again. Coran wasn’t so much a mess anymore and didn’t need constant supervision, so he propped up a sign outside his door and switched the CLOSED sign to OPEN in the door window. When he returned back inside, he snapped his fingers, which sparked the magelights in their crystalline pockets not he walls. The store glowed with hazy blues and oranges from the magelights and the multitude of windows rising up above the entryway as the door on the upper floor opened, and Coran stepped out to lean on the railing.

“You do realize shapeshifters have enhanced senses, right?” he commented, and Alfor flinched a little, having forgot that little detail from his studies during grade school. “I don’t like her very much.”

Alfor couldn’t help but laugh and say, “You barely _know_ her! I’ve been friends with Honerva since first year of _university_ —she’s a lovely person.”

“ _‘Lovely’_ ,” Coran mocked in a snooty voice. 

Alfor rolled his eyes and grabbed a watering can from below the sink in the back. He filled it with water as Coran wandered down the stairs and found a place at Alfor’s workbench not far away, and watched as Alfor started watering the plants stationed on bookshelves between textbooks. He climbed the ladder near the front to tackle the windowsills over the door, and gave the plants all a drink as he normally did every morning before the store opened.

The store was quiet for the first hour or so, which led Alfor and Coran to sit in relative silence as Alfor wrote out letters to patients to inform them of appointments he had pushed aside until further notice. Coran watched from the other side of the counter as Alfor drew the pen across paper in his usual, slanted drawl that had Coran tipping his head to the side to read.

“How do you send these off then?” he asked as Alfor sealed another letter with a bit of melted wax and stamped it. 

“Through the mail, clearly,” Alfor hummed, glancing sparingly over to where Coran was awing at the mark his stamp made. His beard was scruffier than usual that day, and his mess of ginger waves were springing forward and falling over his forehead. Alfor turned away with a huff, setting his jaw as he thought, _You’re being ridiculous. Stop staring_. 

“So then… you take these to a building and stuff ‘em through one of those slots?” Coran said, plucking up an envelope from the stack.

“More or less.”

“And someone’s… _job_ is to move this from point A to point B then?” he said, squinting at the envelope with his jaw set forward, lips pursed, and blue eyes darting towards where Alfor struggled to clear his throat. 

“I, um—yes, that’s one way of putting it.”

“Why not just use messenger birds?” he asked, and Alfor laughed a little. “What?”

“That’s a bit medieval. We haven’t used messenger birds in centuries,” he explained as Coran frowned at him. “What? We don’t exactly communicate with animals anymore. Shapeshifters aren’t exactly a _common occurrence_ around here.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well… there used to be shapeshifters in every city at one time, to communicate with nature and the animals for those who couldn’t,” Alfor explained, batting a hand through the air. “But that was _ages_ ago. You don’t even hear about it in children’s stories anymore. It wasn’t even that big of a part in human history. I think they were mostly farmers and farmhands. Do you… know much about the history of shapeshifters?”

Coran shook his head, tipping his chin against his hand. “I never… heard much about shapeshifters.”

“Really? I find that impressive. You seem to have the mentality of all shapeshifters I read about. Their literature was really… interesting and experimental. Mostly it was existentialism blended with… the voluntary extinction movement.”

“What does that even _mean_?”

“Just that shapeshifters find human society to be pointless and it needs to end,” Alfor said. “Over four centuries ago shapeshifters ceased helping humans and backed off. They might have had their own civilization for a while, but hunters attempted a genocide. We don’t… see many shapeshifters nowadays because of what happened back then. We’re all awfully good at holding grudges, you see.”

Coran’s amusement turned sour in the middle of it, and he sat frowning from the other side of the counter where Alfor leant over pages of parchment. He set his pen aside to address Coran upfront and say, “I feel a large part of it has to do with the animals’ influence, though. And I don’t blame them. The origin of our magic is fascinating—it’s just… unfortunate we couldn’t be kinder to those who gave it to us. I may seem passive, but… I still feel that I play a part in the inequality of humans and the animals. We all think that we’re better than our makers.”

“Yes, well, humans tend to be arrogant in their own ways,” Coran said, picking at the finish on the countertop. “So I see your point.”

Alfor laughed and said, “‘ _Tend to be_ ’?” he repeated, throwing his head back with a laugh. “Don’t be so euphemistic! I know how you feel about us!”

“What? I can’t be light with my insults?” Coran laughed, and Alfor would have continued giggling had the bell not chimed over the door. Coran covered his mouth with a hand and scooted off the stool, heading behind the counter to sit off by the alley window as Alfor swept up his finished letters and stuffed them into his delivery basket.

The customer came up to the counter and asked Alfor about the cold symptoms he’s been having, and after a few questions back and forth, Alfor leaves the counter to grab the supplies for the medicine to clear a sore throat and head cold. 

“Coran—how much do you know about herbology?” he asked from the work table where his customer sat on one of the stools watching Alfor’s progress with the medicine. 

“I don’t know _names_ , per se…” Coran confessed. “I know plants based on medicinal purposes.”

“I can work with that,” Alfor hummed. “In the greenhouse upstairs, there should be a white flower growing on the vibes. They’ll be closed now, but it’s edible and you use it in tea, mostly.”

“I know the one,” Coran declared, leaping off his chair and heading for the stairs. 

After Coran was through the door, Alfor’s customer said, voice raspy from the cold, “Is that the shapeshifter everyone’s talking about?”

“He is,” he replied, smiling softly as he kneaded leaves into a pulp within a stone bowl. “Who’s talking about him, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“My cousin was one of your patients. He was attacked during one of the hunting missions,” he explained, causing Alfor’s attention on the medicine to fade, his hand pausing mid-churn. He picked up the motion again as he heard Coran’s footsteps padding down the stairs again.

“I hope that your cousin is doing well,” Alfor murmured as he busied himself with scraping the pulp into a pot of boiling water. He brushed a hand over the flame and cooled it when Coran returned with the flower.

Alfor pinched the closed petals with a tweezers and lowered it into the pot of water where its petiole was cut off. The instant he drew his hand up out of the pot, the flower dipped in and blossomed outwards in a fan of creamy white that seeped into the water and turned it into a minty green from the pulp. He laid a hand over it and prompted the white glow to subside before pouring it into a tea cup.

“That’s incredible! I never knew it was so easy for you to use magic,” Coran gasped. 

“It comes just as naturally as it probably does for you,” Alfor said with a laugh, a hand on his hip as he leaned into the table and waited for his patient to finish the cup before taking it to the sink in the back. 

“I know, I just—I never entirely believed that humans could use magic like we do,” he confessed. “What does it taste like? Do you think it tastes like how _my_ magic tastes?”

“Does magic even have flavor?” the customer asked.

“Of course,” Coran said. “Water nymph magic tastes like fish, tree nymphs taste like radishes, and satyrs have this weird dirt texture to their magic.”

“I didn’t know satyrs existed, let alone had magic,” the man said.

“All animals do,” Alfor said. “Some more than others, I suppose.”

“Satyrs are difficult to come across,” Coran said. “It took me _years_ to meet them. They live like monks away from civilizations and they never speak to one another unless it’s through their mind links. The mind link is what tastes like dirt, you see—you just get this weird taste in your mouth when you speak to them. Almost like… since they never use their voices, their words themselves are just covered in _dust_.”

The conversation about satyrs was cut short by Alfor’s customer paying for the medicine, insisting that he was already feeling much better. When the man left, Alfor pushed a hand over his forehead with a sigh as Coran returned to lounge on the chair in front of the main counter. 

“Coran… you can’t talk about the forest with the customers,” he sighed. “They don’t understand what it’s like.”

“Well, I agree that they’re all ignorant and misinformed but—”

“ _Coran—_ ”

“I don’t see the harm in it,” he huffed at last, looking away from Alfor to the store window as a customer passed by and turned the knob on the door handle. “They’ll never act any different if they don’t want to change,” Coran said, startling Alfor with the way he said it—cold and brittle. He was starting to hear more of it now that they were actually talking in between Coran’s shifts. 

As Alfor treated more patients and helped customers decide on homemade products he had out on the countertops, Coran stuck to the desk with his head on his forearms. Eventually he left to go upstairs, avoiding Alfor and the customers to climb the steps and disappear through the door. And, when the day was over and Alfor locked up the shop for a late dinner, he found Coran lying on the couch in an exhausted, disgruntled heap. 

 

. . .

 

“I can’t make it over tonight—work ran late and I think Beezer got into something in the trash. He hasn’t been eating or drinking anything,” Zarkon explained over Alfor’s communication amp. The voices always came in distant, like they were caught in a tunnel, or a cave, and he was listening to the echoes. 

“Oh, I’m sorry about Beezer. I hope he gets better soon,” Alfor said.

“I just don’t know what he could’ve gotten _into_. When I let him out on my lunch break, he wouldn’t even get out of his bed. I had to carry him outside.”

“I wish I could help, but I don’t treat animals usually. Have you talked to a farm vet?”

“Not yet—I’m hoping it’s just… a worm or something. I don’t really know. I’ll ask tomorrow—it’s a bit too late for that now. I just got back from work anyways,” he sighed over the amplifier.

“Agreed. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow…?”

“Yeah, I’ll—”

“Tell him to bring Beezer,” Coran’s voice sounded directly beside Zarkon’s, causing Alfor to jump and hold down the communicate to glower at Coran. 

“Was that Coran?” Zarkon’s voice echoed in, and Alfor brought it back up to his ear where Coran leant in to listen, beard brushing up against Alfor’s cheek. 

“Yes, and he wants you to bring Beezer. He might have something in mind,” Alfor said, side-eyeing Coran, who nodded eagerly and left after Zarkon agreed to it.

So that morning, Coran sat impatiently at the worktable downstairs, waiting for the door to open and reveal both Zarkon and Beezer. Alfor was convinced that it was the first time in those five days that Coran ever looked forward to seeing another human. That didn’t seem to change at all, though, considering that the moment Zarkon came in through the door, Coran made a beeline for Beezer. 

“Nice to see you, too,” Zarkon said sarcastically, looking up at Alfor as he finished writing up something on his desk.

“What seems to be the problem with Beezer?” Alfor asked, getting up and wandering over to where Zarkon was now lowering the pup down to the ground as Coran followed after it, crouching beside the dog as it sniffed at his face and made to lay down in the doorway. It was a slim, athletic dog with black fur, pointed ears, and dots of red fur on its face and chest. It wasn’t uncommon to see Zarkon and Beezer jogging down the main street in the early hours of the morning.

“Well, now he’s mostly exhausted and I don’t blame him,” Zarkon confessed, hands on his hips as he stepped to the side to avoid Coran now laying down next to Beezer on the welcome mat. “He… hasn’t been eating. So no use of energy there.”

“It could be a worm. Have you checked when he goes to the bathroom?” Alfor asked, and Zarkon shook his head, shrugging in defeat. 

“He says there’s something wrong with his stomach,” Coran murmured from the floor. “He’s constipated, too.”

“Bit too much information there…” Zarkon droned, looking away as Alfor ducked beside Coran to rub his hand over Beezer’s stomach.

“How can you tell?” Alfor asked.

“Animals use mind links to communicate so they don’t have to speak vocally unless entirely necessary, or when around humans,” Coran murmured, closing his eyes and placing a hand over Beezer’s snout. “I can heal him. I just need a few minutes.”

“Let’s… perhaps _not_ do this in the doorway,” Alfor suggested, and so Zarkon crouched down to lift Beezer up off the ground and to the table where, several days prior, Alfor patched up a victim from Coran’s rampage.

Coran pulled up a stool and sat in front of Beezer, leaning down and pressing his chin to the table surface. Alfor shared a look with Zarkon before asking, “Do you… need any supplies?” 

“No,” Coran hummed, reaching two hands out to brush them over Beezer’s flattened, pointy ears. He leaned over and pressed his forehead to Beezer’s, and blocked out everything Alfor and Zarkon said from that moment on.

Alfor pulled up a stool and sat adjacent to Coran. Zarkon did the same, laying a hand over Beezer’s side just seconds before a faint white glow blossomed beneath his fingertips. He pulled his hand back, gasping as the light from his touch radiated out, encompassing Beezer in its brilliance. Pockets of light faded off of Beezer’s fur like raindrops, collecting in the air and fizzling out before their eyes. Alfor’s jaw dropped at the sight, thinking to himself, _I’ve never seen healing magic as powerful as this_ …

It reminded him of the way Coran rippled with light before popping into a different form. Only, now he was passing it on to Beezer, and continued to do so for the next ten minutes even as several customers came into the store with a purpose they abandoned in favor of watching the spectacle. Near the end, they had a collection of several people in the store—a family of three children and two visitors from down the street. 

Alfor got up to help them, and not long after, he watched from across the store as the magnificent glow faded, and Beezer pushed himself up, panting and looking completely normal.

“He was allergic to something in the trash,” Coran said as Zarkon wrapped his arms around Beezer’s neck and pushed their heads together. Coran winced a little and said, “He also… doesn’t regret a thing. He said it was delicious, whatever it was.”

“Such an idiot,” Zarkon laughed, and the kids at the table started clapping and clinging to Coran to show them more of his magic.

Coran stood up, plucking his hands out of their grips as the mother hurried over and shooed them away. “It’s not nice to pester shapeshifters. Wait outside for me, okay?” she told them, and Alfor frowned as she escorted the kids out of the shop where they sat outside the window on the bench beneath the awning. He could see their heads bobbing up to look inside and let their eyes follow Coran as he started towards the stairs. Alfor glanced after him from around the woman’s shoulder, and then looked to where Beezer hopped off the table to follow after Coran.

“Has the shapeshifter been living _here_ then?” the mother of the children asked as Alfor tied the drawstring on her vitamin bag and handed it to her. “I’ve heard some rumors but I wasn’t certain. I was concerned because you’re such a lovely person—I wouldn’t want anything _dreadful_ happening to you.”

“Oh! No, I’m fine. Coran is pleasant company,” he insisted with a convincing smile. “That’ll come to five bells please.” 

She handed over the coins and walked off after patting Beezer on the head as he passed. She said goodbye to Zarkon, who jokingly tipped his hat at her as she walked off. “People don’t seem to take too kindly to Coran,” Zarkon hummed.

“I’m not too surprised,” Alfor sighed, scraping powder into small, circular slots he then compressed down into the holes. He punched the capsule tops onto the pills and let them cascade into a bottle for his customer. “It’s difficult to forgive people who did us wrong, even indirectly. Our empathy makes us prone to grudges, just as much as it does make us prone to forgive people.”

“Some more than others.”

“Yeah…” Alfor sighed. He capped the bottle and slid it over the counter in exchange for twenty bell coins. “Have a nice day,” he said. 

“You as well,” the customer said, waving to them both and heading out the door in the time it took for Beezer to race back down the stairs carrying a book between his jaws. Alfor bristled at the sight, but relaxed as Beezer dropped it into Zarkon’s hands without a fuss. 

Zarkon dusted it off and laughed, returning it to Alfor with a grin. “Looks like we have a new messenger dog for your shapeshifter.”

The title of the dreadfully old journal read, _Medicinal Applications Through The Centuries_. There was a mark on the table of contents page that had Alfor laughing. 

 

 _You might want to brush up on_  
your healing magic history. Take  
SPECIAL CARE in reading the  
section about SHAPESHIFTERS.

_\- Coran_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Tumblr](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/) :D


	4. blaytz

When the store closed at five that evening, Alfor walked Zarkon to the door, promising that he’d stop by for dinner that night. “Blaytz is coming by, too. Just so you aren’t too surprised seeing him there,” Zarkon said as Beezer hopped up onto his hip so Zarkon could pet him. 

Alfor reached across to pet Beezer behind the ear and say, “Good to know. I always have to mentally prepare myself for that one.”

Zarkon threw his head back laughing and insisted that he would most definitely be telling Blaytz that the second he came over. Zarkon left with Alfor calling out after him, “Please don’t tell him I said that! _Zar_! Are you listening to me?”

“I heard _every word_ ,” he called back, nudging on Beezer’s leash to get him going. Beezer was still trying to stay at the door, perhaps to get one last look at Coran before leaving, but eventually he was forced to move on, and trot alongside Zarkon back down the street they came. Alfor groaned, shutting the door and locking it.

When he turned around, he found Coran lingering at the top of the stairs just like every other time, and he expected a snarky, mocking joke, but instead received silence as Coran turned away and headed back into the living room. Alfor swept a hand through the air above his head, and let the magelights fizzle out in their pockets on the walls.

At the top of the stairs, Alfor stretched his hands over his head and yawned. “I’ll be over at Zarkon’s and won’t be back until late tonight,” he declared to his guest, who was lounging on the couch with both legs over the back of the cushions.

“What? What about me?” Coran asked.

“There’s food in the cooler, and if you’re looking for something _frozen_ , you can check the basement,” Alfor said, moving over to check the contents of his cooler at the moment before opening up the cabinets. “There’s a lot of pickled fruit in here… Thoughts on bacon?”

“I don’t eat meat,” Coran sighed.

“Okay, then no meat. There’s some… lettuce in the greenhouse? If you like?”

Coran hummed unconvincingly, which had Alfor scowling at him and rolling his eyes. “Alright, well… I’ll see you in a few hours. Okay? Keep the door locked and don’t answer it if someone comes knocking,” he said, and Coran grumbled his consent, still flopped over upside down on the couch. He just looked even more miserably when Alfor finally turned away from his food supply to observe Coran in his gloom. “Stop acting like a child. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“What if something goes wrong? What if I turn into an elephant? Or that sea creature you were talking about?” Coran moaned.

“I wouldn’t be able to help either way,” Alfor sighed. “Goodnight, Coran…”

“Goodnight,” he said, curling up on the couch and tipping to the side where he could pull Alfor’s wool blanket up over his head.

Alfor grabbed his keys, a bag of salt snacks, and hurried back down the stairs and to the basement to grab an offering for the dinner—a bottle of alcohol. On his way to Zarkon’s house, he tried his best to hide his excitement, but it had been _weeks_ since he last saw Blaytz. They had no reason to cross paths unless Blaytz happened to be ill, but that man had a strong immune system and Alfor couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing. Zarkon always insisted it was a good thing, but it just prevented Blaytz from needing to cross the city to visit Alfor. 

Zarkon lived farther up the city hill, and Blaytz resided on the other side of it, far, _far_ away from Alfor. At the pinnacle of the hill, Alfor could taste the ocean breeze on his tongue, and the cool texture of the evening air on his face. He sighed against it, clutching the neck of the alcohol bottle to his chest before continuing on down the stone path that ran alongside a cliff overlooking the ocean, and the red roofs waning down.

Blaytz would always hold a special place in Alfor’s heart. There was something about his constantly bubbling personality that made it difficult for Alfor to dwell on all the parts of his attitude that had Zarkon reeling. Despite how difficult it was for Zarkon to accept Blaytz as a good person, they were now great friends—all three of them were. They’d been friends since their university years after having lived in the same dingy dorm building. None of their classes crossed paths, and they had no reason to know one another aside from the fact that Zarkon happened to be a mutual friend to both Alfor and Blaytz. 

Zarkon spent _months_ talking about Blaytz, but never introducing him to Alfor. Blaytz sounded like nothing more than this fabled, iconic _legend_ who could chug a keg the longest without vomiting, while also attend sports practice the following morning without even a lick of a hangover. Supposedly, he could also balance sports with his engineering classes that were more than just a little challenging, which was a feat in and of itself. 

“I want to meet this fellow you keep talking about,” Alfor insisted one day in the dining hall of their university dorm. “You said he lives here, right?”

“Yeah, but he’s in a different wing,” Zarkon said, picking around his plate to avoid making eye contact with Alfor. “And you wouldn’t like him much. All he talks about is the birds and the bees and everything in between.”

“But if he lives here, why haven’t I seen him around the dining hall?” Alfor sighed, propping his chin on his hand and looking across the room. He pointed out a stocky guy farther back in the dining hall. “Is that him?”

“No, Alfor—”

“Is that him over there? What about that one there?” Alfor continued to pester.

“I… purposely don’t eat with him most days,” Zarkon confessed, which had Alfor’s jaw dropping. “He’s a bit of a handful, okay? You can only handle so much of his egotism at a time.”

“Yes, but I can handle you just fine.”

“ _Alfor!_ You _asshole!_ ” Zarkon exclaimed, shoving his shoulder into Alfor’s as Alfor dissolved into giggles and tried to stop himself from laughing by taking a drink of water, which only made him choke.

Most days went like this—mornings in class on nothing but an apple or two, and then afternoons with Zarkon if at all possible where they ate their hunger away, which was followed by more classes, and evenings filled with studying at the dining table together and slowly eating their way through the several hours the dining hall was open. Alfor was fine with the routine, but most days, he thrived on spontaneity. Total disorder was something Zarkon couldn’t cope with, and it was always a task for Alfor to understand that. 

With Alfor’s scholarship to the university, he was able to get his own dorm room meant solely for himself, which made it possible for Alfor to be a disaster and not get crap for it. It also meant that every moment Zarkon spent in his dorm room, it was a mass panic to clean the place so Zarkon wouldn’t feel the need to (the only reason why he knew this was because the few occasions Zarkon showed up unannounced resulted in Alfor keeping the door as closed as possible so his friend couldn’t see the mess). 

Alfor didn’t _often_ show up announced, but the instant he got a party invitation in his organic chemistry lab, he had to channel his anxiety about it to _someone_ , and that someone tended to be Zarkon. 

“You… were invited to a _party_?” Zarkon repeated, and Alfor nodded nervously as he tried not to focus too heavily on the fact that Zarkon’s roommate had his clothes all over the floor, which was partially the reason why the door was blocked. “What gave them the impression that _you_ party?”

“Oh, shut up. What do I wear to parties?” Alfor whined. “Could you come with? You’ve been to parties before…”

“Yes, but—”

“ _Pleeease_?” Alfor begged, but all he got was a guilty expression from his friend. “What is it? Don’t you want to come?”

“Yes, but I have an exam the next day I need to cram for,” Zarkon sighed. Exams tended to take place on the weekends to avoid conflicts with other classes. “But… you should go! I mean, I don’t know if anyone else is going. Where’s the party at?”

They discussed details about the party, and Zarkon promised to find people who were going and would agree to take Alfor with them. Alfor was almost certain Zarkon wouldn’t have continued searching had he not first asked Blaytz, and Blaytz responded with, “Um… No, I think I’m passing on this one. I got an invitation but I never planned on going.” So, with the prospect of Blaytz not being there, Zarkon continued to ask around and eventually found a group that was going.

So Alfor went in with a group of practically-strangers, and survived the first hour making accidental, but also temporary, friends to talk with. House parties were never the place to make long-lasting friends, unless you counted Blaytz as an exception to that rule. 

From what Alfor can understand, Blaytz really _didn’t_ plan on going, but reconsidered his resolution an hour before, when a cute girl (who he was into at the time) declared offhandedly that she’d be there. So, the first time Alfor saw Blaytz was at that very house party when they stood at opposite ends of the room, and made eye contact—almost as if they knew that the person they were staring at _had_ to be familiar somehow. Alfor was certain he must have seen a man of Blaytz’ physique once before, but it was mostly from all the times Zarkon attempted to paint a mental image and failed in doing so—

—Because he _seriously_ withheld the fact that Blaytz was absolutely, _totally_ the type of guy Alfor never knew he loved and aspired to have.

They were upstairs where the crowd of people was thinner, and the conversation was quieter. They could still hear the debates rising up from beneath the floorboards. Someone on their floor began to talk about bogus professors in their classes, which led to horror stories through the years. As a freshman, Alfor felt intimidated, but was surprised by how included he felt, standing, drinking in a room with upperclassmen and underclassmen with this beautiful, dark-haired man staring at him from across the room.

An argument struck up about the clubs, and at that point Alfor wasn’t entirely paying attention. He was too busy focusing on that broad-shouldered, blue-eyed beauty, who tuned into the conversation suddenly and said, “So you’re suggesting athletics aren’t a valuable part of university social life?”

“I never said that—I was just saying how funding should be put more towards intellectual clubs rather than… funneling it into _sports_!” a girl said from where she stood on the stairs, cream-color skirt swishing as she turned to her friend and said, “What good is it to have all of our tuition money going into sports that mean nothing to the future of the students?”

“Paying for a student’s future is just as important is it is paying for a student’s _present moment_ ,” the guy said. “Sports provide current entertainment that brings people together—I mean, I met _all_ of my friends at the start of the semester by going to sporting events. By saying sports are obsolete in the funding program, you’re suggesting that all social gatherings are—like sororities and fraternities! They have the same concept, only all the sorority and fraternity members think that it’s a worthwhile investment—just as athletes do!”

“Sororities and frats are _not_ the same concept,” she argued, standing higher on the stairs with a hand on her hip, and the other leaning on the railing she looked over, and down at him. He got up onto a chair, and the people in the room started yelling.

“Sororities and fraternities are there for connections—but while you all are off doing ‘charity work’, pretending like you care about society and the ‘less fortunate’, you funnel all your money into living at these goddamn houses, and your fancy clothes, and your button-up shirts and suede shoes,” he countered, flaunting his own shoes that had everyone laughing—they were mucked up and filthy. “Athletes _pay_ money _and_ time to _win_!”

That had all the athletes in the room yelling, and Alfor jumped at the volume of it. He could tell who was and who wasn’t, just based on expression, and the size of their muscles compared to the students who would rather read a book instead of run a mile. He was among that latter crew.

It was a long shot, but Alfor’s heartbeat started to race, and his adrenaline spiked with it before he could stop it. A single, jumbled sentence popped into his brain and his mouth decided to say it anyways. 

“Yes, but… that could be money and time spent towards your studies.”

Even just his small voice caused the cheering to cease, and all eyes to zero in on Alfor. He flinched, and watched as the girl at the stairs hopped down, and the boy followed suit. “What was that?” the guy said, crossing his arms and leaning back on his heels as Alfor swallowed hard. 

“It’s just…” he started, and gained confidence when the guy raised a playful eyebrow at him. “We give the university all this money for our education—why should we be expected to spend _more_ for extracurriculars, or even _clubs_ and frats and sororities? Where is all this money _going to_ in the first place?”

“And how can we expect them to explain they don’t have money for new textbooks or supplies?” the girl said. “What are they using our tuition for, if not for our education?!” 

A roar of grievances rose up, and filled the previous debate with talk of tuition costs and other topics of discussion. Alfor could still feel the adrenaline racing in his chest and making his heart ache. Just as he was expecting it to calm down, he was approached by a familiar voice saying, “I didn’t expect you to speak up.”

He looked and found that guy—the athlete—closer than before, and standing directly beside him as a verbal war started. It was the start of a revolution against the indecencies of the university treasury. Or… at least they hoped it was. Most of it was thrown in drunken hazes, but it was all true nonetheless.

“Oh. What gave you that impression?” Alfor laughed, turning towards him and finding his face _much_ closer to that beautiful man’s face than before.

They both hesitated, studying each others’ faces—Alfor, with his bluish-grey eyes entranced by the athlete’s _clearly_ blue. It was easy to mistake Alfor’s eyes as simply grey, but with this man… there was no questioning it. 

“Would you…” the guy started, “want to step outside?” 

He offered Alfor his hand, and instantly Alfor was smiling to himself, and agreeing wordlessly to follow along. 

Alfor could never be sure _what_ they intended by going out the back door together, _alone_. But either way, the second they introduced one another, it started with Alfor saying his name, and the guy stammering to a halt, and blurting out, “Wait—as in _Zar’s friend?_ Holy shit, he’s talked so much about you!”

Alfor stuttered for a moment before exclaiming, “ _What_? What do you mean? What’s your name, maybe he’s mentioned you.”

“Blaytz,” he said, and Alfor laughed so hard he started crying, and had to sit down on the steps out on the back deck. 

“I didn’t know you were coming!” he cried out, clasping both hands over his face with a groan.

“Neither did I with you! Holy shit this is spectacular. All Zar talks about is training, pretty girls at the dining hall, and _you_! It’s remarkable!”

“Same here! But he talks about you instead of myself,” Alfor laughed, “He never said _anything_ about—” he stopped himself from confessing the _few_ things Alfor failed to mention. One, being the fact that Zarkon never mentioned how buff Blaytz was, and the fact that his bulging biceps felt like Heaven to lean against. _You’re hopeless, Alfor_ , he told himself as Blaytz bumped his shoulder back when he sat beside Alfor.

They talked until the early hours of the morning when the party closed up and they had to leave their cozy little nook on the back deck. They walked around the side of the house together, left through the fence door, and started back towards campus. Alfor couldn’t imagine why Zarkon couldn’t spend more than a class period with Blaytz because he could listen to Blaytz talk all day and make subtle, nearly _seamless_ compliments from, “Zar never said how _brilliant_ you are!” to “I imagine you do incredible well in classes, unlike me.”

It was chilly at night, and despite how much they both wanted to linger outside of the dormitory, they couldn’t, at least not without winter jackets. They wound up sitting in the lobby of the dormitory that was an echoing, yet silent pocket during an otherwise sleepy moment of the night. There was just one student worker at the front desk, illuminated by a magelight trapped in glass, and Alfor sparked a light into one of the lamps on the nearest end table.

“You’re into magic? I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am,” Blaytz said. “You look like an elf.”

“I _what?_ ” Alfor laughed.

“Sorry! Oh gods, I just meant your _hair_! Isn’t white hair an elvish trait?” he asked, laughing as he frantically apologized again. “I swear your ears aren’t pointy! They’re round and beautiful.”

“I can’t _believe_ you just called me an _elf_ ,” he cried out, laughing as he covered his face, and Blaytz whined, “But you’d make a cute elf!”

“As if! I’m hardly tall and lanky. I’d probably be the shortest elf around,” Alfor giggled. “But in terms of my white hair—it’s an awfully difficult trait to dilute. The only relatives of mine who don’t have white hair married _into_ the family. So I’m technically not even related to them at all.”

“Well that’s unfortunate. I don’t know of many people with white hair,” Blaytz confessed. “So I guess I never would have known that white hair is my type.”

Alfor turned red from his toes all the way up to his round ears and nearly fainted right then and there. He probably would have been ridiculous and stupid and asked Blaytz if he wanted to visit his single dorm room, but thankfully, they were intervened by a group of girls walking in and heading to their wing of the dormitory. They stopped and shrieked at the sight of Blaytz, running up and asking him all sorts of questions, like, “We were just about to go play a game of cards in so-and-so’s room! Wanna join?” 

“Oh! Sure—Alfor, you wanna come with?” he asked, but Alfor was thoroughly startled, and his brain stopped functioning long enough for his mouth to just blurt out, “Oh, no, I’m fine. I should be getting back to my room.”

“Really? Are you sure? Well, hopefully I’ll see you around. I loved talking with you!” he said, standing up and was promptly dragged farther across the lobby to the women’s side of the dormitory. Before he could completely disappear, Blaytz turned around and waved to him, and left completely.

Alfor couldn’t stop himself from smiling the rest of the way to his dorm room, where he then collapsed face-first on his bed to smother his smile. It hardly worked, but all the excitement of that night had him sleeping until noon when Zarkon came knocking on his door. Alfor groaned into his pillow and rolled over, staring at his ceiling until another thorough knocking had him jolting out of bed and lunging for the door.

It was quite obvious that he’d been sleeping—the lights were still off, and his blinds were closed, which is to say Alfor’s hair was a mess and his ponytail was gone.

“What is it?” he asked, rubbing a hand down the side of his face as Zarkon laughed, his amusement _hardly necessary_ , in Alfor’s opinion.

“Rough night?” he said, walking into the room and collapsing on Alfor’s bed before Alfor could beat him there. “I was just about to head down for lunch. How late did you stay out?”

“I don’t know. I think three?”

“In the morning?” Zarkon gawked, which had Alfor’s eyes rolling.

“As opposed to _what other time_? It’s not even three in the afternoon yet—wait, is it?” he gasped, clutching to his hair as he scrambled for his watch. It was resting on the nightstand where he left it, and he sighed in relief as the hour hand was barely passing noon.

“Did you actually talk at this party? Sounds like it, your voice is kind of raspy,” Zarkon said, gesturing to his throat as Alfor slid onto his bed and collapsed on his stomach beside Zarkon. “The last party we went to, you didn’t even say a word.”

“I felt challenged and so I talked. I started an argument about university tuition being spent on useless things,” he moaned into the pillow. _All because Blaytz challenged me._

Zarkon asked if he was hungry, and so Alfor was forced to get ready for the day. They walked together to the first floor of the building where they funneled in with all the other students to the dining hall. It was filled with the smell of bacon and maple syrup, and Alfor sighed at the aroma of it.

In the midst of piling on three fluffy pancakes, Alfor was shocked by the sound of Blaytz’ voice off to the side. He looked over instantly, only to be startled by Blaytz already moving towards him. 

“Looks like you survived,” Blaytz said, and Alfor squeaked as Zarkon nearly dropped his plate. 

“You—” Zarkon started, but Blaytz interrupted him.

“I was just finishing up, but… I don’t have any homework. Mind if I join you guys?” he asked, and Alfor was practically turning into a puddle at the sight of Blaytz’ beautiful smile.

“‘Kay,” he fluttered, dissolving into a blushing mess as he hurriedly finished piling on food and following in the direction Blaytz walked to. Zarkon was stuck at the pancake station, and cursed as the maple syrup in his hand spilled over the plate.

 

. . .

 

Alfor went ahead and walked straight into Zarkon’s house with just a simple, “Hello! It’s just me!” and was greeted by Beezer, who looked _far_ better than before. He was back to his normal self, and just like every other greeting, gently hopped up on Alfor’s hip so he could lick at Alfor’s goatee. Alfor laughed, nudging his chin up and rubbing his hand at his hair to clean it of Beezer’s saliva. 

“He has arrived!” Blaytz shouted from the other room, skidding into the hallway with his arms up. “My favorite nerd!”

“Dear gods, you don’t have to say that every time I—Oh! Okay,” Alfor laughed, accepting his fate as the one person Blaytz still lifted into the air during hugs. He patted his hand over Blaytz’ dark hair before he was released and dropped back down to the flats of his shoes.

“I hear you’re doing dangerous things nowadays. Shapeshifters, murderers, half-dead dogs,” Blaytz said, gesturing to Beezer.

“He wouldn’t have _died_ ,” Zarkon insisted. “Stop saying my dog almost died!”

“His dog almost died,” Blaytz whispered to Alfor.

“For fuck’s sake,” Zarkon breathed between his hands, which he slapped over his face and dragged down over his cheeks. 

“It’s not _dangerous_ , and Coran isn’t a murderer. He’s harmed people, yes, but hasn’t _killed_ as far as I know,” Alfor insisted. “And it was just because he was infected, which drove him mad.”

“That’s more danger than what Zar over here gets into. And he’s an officer!” he cried out, pointing frantically to their friend, who glared at them through the kitchen archway. Alfor gasped, remembering the conversation he’d had with Honvera earlier that day. 

“So I hear you skipped out on your date,” he said, folding his arms so that when Zarkon peered over at him, Alfor succeeded in looking thoroughly disappointed. Zarkon bristled, brushing his hands on his kitchen apron as he swallowed hard and looked away. “What’d you do that for?”

“Skipped out on a date? This guy? I can’t believe it,” Blaytz said sarcastically. “I never would have put it past this one.”

“Oh fuck you,” Zarkon hissed.

“I can’t believe how much of a scaredy-cat you are,” Alfor accused. “You’re lucky Honerva was so nice about it.”

“ _Honerva?_ You _talked to her_?” he cried out, groaning and stomping his feet in the kitchen as he disappeared from sight. “Unbe _lievable!_ ”

They could still hear Zarkon groaning when something banged into the counter—Alfor assumed it was Zarkon’s forehead. Alfor smirked at Blaytz, who pushed himself up onto the dining table and snickered at Alfor before saying, “I think Honerva’s the only person Zarkon can look at and want to piss himself while simultaneously popping a boner.”

“ _BLAYTZ!_ ” Zarkon shrieked, racing into the dining room an instant later to chase Blaytz out of it, and to the living room where he lunged over the coffee table to crash into Blaytz, knocking him straight into the couch. They both misjudged the force of it, and Alfor clapped both hands over his mouth to keep from screaming over the sound of Blaytz and Zarkon tipping the couch backwards, crashing into the floor.

Alfor collapsed into a chair laughing so hard his stomach hurt and his eyes teared up. Blaytz was squeaking in high-pitched screams of terror as Zarkon grabbed him in a headlock and shoved them both into the back cushions of the couch. They continued to fight until Blaytz accidentally kicked the end table, and sent the lamp spilling towards them. Alfor yanked both hands up, delaying the fall by a second so that Zarkon could lunge for it and catch it in the air.

Immediately after, Zarkon leapt for the kitchen, yelling about the stove that was hissing water at them from the rim of the pot. Blaytz only just recovered enough to shove the couch back into place with Alfor’s help, who was still smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. 

“You’re both so ridiculous,” he laughed, and was instantly tackled from behind by Blaytz, tipping them both over the back of the couch so Alfor collapsed first with the weight of Blaytz on his back and around his chest. 

“You wanna say that again?” Blaytz taunted, and Alfor was giggling uncontrollably, even when he squirmed out of Blaytz’ grip and onto the floor. 

“Stop flirting in front of Beezer,” Zarkon chastised.

“I don’t flirt!” Blaytz cried.

“Oh yeah, and cats _breath underwater_ ,” Alfor laughed.

“Fine—I flirt, but I only flirt with the people that matter,” he insisted, and pegged both Alfor and Zarkon with a sturdy glare that had them both bursting into laughter. “What? I’m serious!”

“So strangers on the train to Arus count in that?” Zarkon jested.

“ _Everyone_ matters, that’s the point!” Blaytz said. 

“You’re such a sap,” Alfor laughed, scrambling up to sit on the couch. “It’s sweet.”

Zarkon groaned in horror as Blaytz clasped a hand to his heart before reaching out and shaking Alfor by the shoulder. “You know I love you, right? Because I do.”

Alfor covered his blush with his hands. “Stop it.”

“This is serious, Alfor. You have to say it back,” Blaytz insisted.

“ _Enough_ of all _that_! Food is done,” Zarkon called out, muttering, “Thank The Ancients…”

“Not until Alfor confesses his undying love for me,” Blaytz insisted.

“Stop tormenting Alfor. What did he ever do to deserve your—your _weirdness_?” Zarkon exclaimed, snapping his fingers at Blaytz, who deflated into a scowl.

Saved for the time being, Alfor jumped off of the couch and hurried to the kitchen where he took a bowl of pasta that Zarkon handed to him. He was so hungry that he began eating before he even sat down, and during that time, he took inventory of the items that accompanied him at the table. It was clean, as always, and there was a stack of books beneath a flower Alfor gave to him in his introductory horticulture class. It was one of their first experiments, and it was intended to make them feel better about themselves for not _really_ knowing how gardening worked. The flower itself, once plucked at the peak of its fertility, would never wilt or dry if extracted properly. 

“I can’t believe you’ve kept this around,” Blaytz said, noting the centerpiece on the table. “Shouldn’t it have died?”

“Magic keeps it alive,” Zarkon said with a shrug. “We all have a little bit in us. Do you think it’d die if you drowned it in water?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” Alfor hummed. “I’m kind of interested to know how long you’ll keep it around. So I wouldn’t experiment with it.”

“I might have to put it in my will,” he deadpanned.

Blaytz shouted and clasped his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing harder. “What? Who’re you gonna give it to? The kid you have with _Honerva?_ ”

“I am _this close_ to strangling you,” Zarkon hissed, shaking his fist at Blaytz.

“Kinky,” he said, and Alfor covered his face with his hands so neither of them could see how much this amused him.

Zarkon scooped food into Beezer’s dish across the kitchen before joining them at the table. Alfor sighed as he realized that graduating university hadn’t improved any of their cooking skills, but of the three of them, Zarkon definitely provided the best meals. Alfor could live on pasta, and the smell was heavenly, so he began shoveling noodles into his mouth once more and reveled at the sensation of actually eating a decent meal for once. 

Alfor nearly complimented the dish at the exact same moment something burst at the ceiling in a flash of light. He ducked his head, thinking that one of the light bulbs exploded, but something fell, _screaming_ , as it hit the floor. 

“ _Holy shit!_ What the fuck?!” Zarkon shrieked, tripping out of his chair, trying to grab a broom to bat the creature with. 

Blaytz pasta slipped off of his fork as he stared at the ginger man now on the floor in place of _the spider that was once in the corning of the room_. Beezer started howling like a siren as Blaytz stammered, “Is that—Is that a _man?_ ”

“ _Coran?_ ” Alfor squeaked, dropping his fork to jump up and stop Zarkon from swinging the broom at their guest.

Coran lifted himself off the floor with a groan, muttering, “I still can’t control the shifts well, can I?”

Zarkon lowered the broom with a huff, dropping it on the floor to push his hands over his eyes, squeezing them shut as he paced away from this disaster. He grabbed Beezer by the collar and hauled him out of the kitchen so he would stop howling. Alfor dropped his hands to his side, staring incredulously at Coran as he watched Zarkon storm out, and then noted the fact that Blaytz was still holding his fork up, staring at them both in awe.

“Who… Who is this?” Blaytz asked, gesturing vaguely to Coran. “Is this your… shapeshifter friend?”

Alfor put his hands on his hips, and raised one up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “ _Yes_ , this is Coran. Coran, this is Blaytz.”

“Did… _you_ two have a thing?” Coran asked, and Blaytz clapped his hands with a laugh as Alfor flushed bright red.

“ _Man_ , he’s a perfect guesser!” Blaytz cried out. “Is that part of your shapeshifter magic?”

“No, it’s just called _observation_ ,” Coran said, brushing his knuckles against his shirt as Alfor groaned miserably. 

“How long have you been a fly on the wall?” Alfor sighed.

“Actually, I was a spider—”

“It’s a figure of speech!” he whined as Blaytz slammed both hands on the table, laughing maniacally. 

Zarkon came back in with his arm crossed, glaring at Coran until Coran’s gaze slipped down to the apron around Zarkon’s waist. He glanced down at himself and hastily tore at the bow and ripped the apron off his hips, throwing it on the counter as he burst out, “For gods’ sakes! You realize this is trespassing, don’t you? I could have you—”

“Zar, come on, he didn’t mean it like that,” Alfor insisted, wincing as he adding, “I think.”

“I get that he’s your patient, but you can’t just _let people—_ ” he started, gesturing madly at Coran, who was busy plucking a long, ginger hair off of his shirt and flicking it onto the floor. Zarkon dissolved into a furious groan that ended with, “I don’t _need this tonight_ …”

“What? Oh, come on, have you even had a chat with the man?” Blaytz cried out, slapping a hand on the table. “I want to know what he’s all about since he’s living with my best man here.”

“Not permanently,” Alfor said just as Coran said, “For the time being.” They looked at one another, and Alfor turned away with his face red all the way to his hairline. He hurried to sit back down at the table beside Blaytz.

Coran slid into the seat across from Alfor, and smiled like a dog who just snagged the holiday meal off the counter. Zarkon glowered at him as he sat, and simmering with rage for Coran, and Blaytz, and probably Alfor, too, for siding with Coran. _What a perfect start to a meal_ , Alfor mused wretchedly as he watched his friend knit his brow together, and twirl his fork between noodles.

“Would you like some pasta then?” Alfor asked Coran.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. I don’t usually eat much in general. This is all rather new to me,” he confessed, waving a hand.

“What do you eat then? Normally, anyways,” Blaytz asked.

“I hear variations of tree nuts,” Alfor hummed, and Coran nodded. “That can’t be _all_ you eat, though.”

“I have a garden,” he confessed. “Relying on anything other than your own garden is a bit counterintuitive. Then there’s no way for you to be independent from society. You have to depend on others to provide the food you eat.”

“Interesting concept,” Blaytz said. “I guess you know exactly what’s in your meals then, huh?”

“Exactly,” Coran said, winking at Blaytz.

Laughing, Blaytz said, “So where is this garden of your’s?” 

“Near the end of the Sound,” he explained. “Where the waterfalls are.”

“Isn’t that area a little hard to get to?” Zarkon asked. “I mean—is it before or _after_ that massive waterfall?”

“After—”

“It must be beautiful,” Alfor sighed. “I’ve always wanted to explore the forests. I did field studies in university that involved the basic outskirts of the forest, but I never _really_ felt like I was there. You know?”

“All of my field studies involved dealing with nymphs,” Blaytz huffed.

Alfor gasped and reached for his pocket. “That reminds me! I brought you some salts for the nymphs.”

“You’re such a sap,” Blaytz whined, slouching as he accepted the baggie.

“Nymphs?” Coran repeated, and hooted when Blaytz and Alfor shrugged and nodded. “I _love_ those guys! I don’t care what anyone else says—they’re the most helpful creatures. I couldn’t say a bad thing about them—unless, you know, you count the fact that they help _humans_ because they have no standards.”

“I feel offended somehow,” Zarkon hummed.

“Blaytz works with the nymphs at the mill,” Alfor explained to Coran. “They power the water mills. They generate the electricity in the city. There’s also nymphs working in the wind fields over the ocean and across the river from us.”

“Why would you need electricity when you have magic?” Coran asked, and Alfor scowled at Zarkon for rolling his eyes at Coran. 

“ _I_ don’t use much of it, but not many people use magelights nowadays. Not when there’s electricity.” Alfor pointed overhead to the light fixture on the ceiling, and Coran frowned at it.

“Now that’s just crude. You’re replicating magic! It’s so much easier to just _use_ magic,” he insisted.

“Makes jobs,” Blaytz said. “I guess. And I love my job—I’ve actually been working with Honerva recently. Speaking of…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zarkon grumbled. 

But of course, they all talked about it, and succeeded in guilt-tripping their friend into apologizing. It wasn’t exactly a _difficult_ task—there had been far bigger wars fought than just convincing Zarkon to be a decent human being towards Honerva. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Find me on Tumblr :)](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)


	5. taujeer sound expedition

It was difficult to turn Coran down now that Alfor realized that even if he _did_ say a sturdy “No,” Coran would follow after him in his attempted disguise that would fizzle away after half an hour. Alfor would be on a trip for supplies, and in the midst of reaching for a bag of seeds, he would be bombarded by a stand tipping over when Coran burst from the form of a dragon fly into a full-grown man. They were kicked out of the store that time around, and Alfor apologized even as the owner closed the door in their faces.

“ _Please_ Mr. Marvok, he won’t cause any trouble—”

“I don’t want shapeshifters in my shop,” he huffed, and slammed the door in Alfor’s face. 

Alfor stared at the wooden door for a moment, hand still half-raised in a pleading gesture before he realized that he was still clutching onto the seed bag. 

“I didn’t realize humans were so coldhearted,” Coran commented as Alfor stuffed the seed bag into his satchel and turned to him.

“ _You’re_ one to talk,” he snapped. “You can’t keep following me around like this.”

“I have nothing better to do!” Coran whimpered, slumping against the side of a tree, and then stroked it tenderly with his hand. His orange hair looked like fire against the bark. “I just want to help out… Since I can’t pay you back for your help with stitching my wounds and such.”

“Following me around isn’t classified as ‘helping’,” Alfor said, storming off with a hand caught over his face. He dragged it down, glancing back as Coran slouched off of the tree with a groan and began following Alfor down the street. 

He did his best to ignore Coran, at least until Coran started scuffing his boots with every step, and letting out distressed, tired sighs as people walked past them and gave them odd looks. Alfor did his best to offer apologetic smiles, but he couldn’t be serious about a single one of them considering how utterly _pissed off he was_. He’d been going to Mr. Marvok’s shop ever since his professor recommended it, and it was a miracle that he was on good terms with the man. At least, he _had been_ until Coran got them kicked out of the store. 

They got to the boulevard that was sewn up the middle with massive trees, and Alfor peered down a familiar path leading off to a park he frequented. He hadn’t visited since Coran fell under his care, but now was as good a time as ever. 

“Would you mind if we took a detour for a moment?” he asked.

“By all means,” Coran said, gesturing ahead for Alfor to take the lead. As they started down the sidewalk between buildings, Coran added, “I’d rather spend time outside than be cooped up in the shop.”

“It’s not _that_ gloomy,” Alfor said, rolling his eyes.

“After nearly a week of this? It gets kind of gloomy,” he said, scratching at his beard as they came to the path that would take them up, closer to the peak of the city.

Amidst the red rooftops, brick buildings, and the white store fronts, there laid magnificent trees that covered the streets in shade where they could reach. The park laid between houses and apartments, and collected passing visitors and people on their commutes to work. Alfor came there since the day his professor took their class out to this particular park. 

“Later on in my studies at university, I took a botany course,” he started, glancing at Coran before turning his eyes up to the branches webbing over their heads. “But most—no, _all_ —of the experiments involved calculations and microscopes and long, _long_ lectures… And one day my professor was stir crazy—she’d been in her office and in class for I think three days straight—so she moved class outside for a day. And she took us here.”

“I’d get stir crazy, too.”

Alfor glowered at Coran, who innocently shrugged. Alfor swore under his breath as he started through the grass to the base of the tree that had a girth beyond that of his arm-span. He walked around it to where they could see the bark curve and twist, and wrap its way towards the sky. 

Alfor laid his hand over the bark where a knob had formed. Coran followed suit, and seemed to gasp, which drew his attention to where Coran’s wide blue eyes combed over the face of the tree, and up towards the leaves. “It knows you,” he said in awe.

“Yeah, she’s a cork oak nymph. My professor introduced us to her—I think she came up with the nymph’s name—Flerona. It just sort of stuck with me, so that’s what I always call her,” Alfor explained, letting his hand drag back down to his side. “I figured… I mean, even if we don’t have _forests_ by any means, we still connect with nature.”

Coran stepped back from the tree, pinching a hand over his mouth. Alfor didn’t understand why until he caught a hint of Coran’s grin underneath his beard. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s just—you _do_ realize I can communicate with nymphs, right?” Coran laughed, pointing to the tree. “And she knows a little _too_ much about you.”

“What?” Alfor squeaked, twisting around to look at Flerona, and burst out laughing. “You can hear what she’s saying?”

“Well… I’ve been wondering what all these nymphs have to say about this place,” he confessed, changing the subject and causing Alfor to cry out in annoyance. Even as he started to pester Coran into telling him, Coran continued forward on his tangent. “The trees on the boulevard have an _awful_ lot to say about poor driving skills, let me tell you! I can hear them twittering like old ladies to one another—I mean, they have nothing better to do considering they’re _far_ too ancient to change forms anymore—”

“You’re changing the subject! Just tell me what Flerona has to say!” he whined, grabbing Coran by the arm and dragging him towards the tree trunk where their feet tangled with the roots, and Alfor practically tripped into the trunk. “Do you realize how long I’ve spoken with her?” he demanded, “And I’ve never heard a _word_ from her!”

“That always _does_ make for an excellent conversation partner—you talk as much as you want and your partner can’t even talk back,” Coran said, and earned a slap for it. Coran pressed his hand to the bark again, and burst out laughing instantly. He laughed until he cried, and leant his forehead against the tree until the tears subsided. 

Alfor was so startled that he started laughing too, until Coran said, “Sh-She was just telling me about your grandma—when she came to visit and slapped you upside the head for not writing to her.”

“ _What?_ Ugh, you awful rat! I can’t believe you witnessed that,” Alfor whined to Flerona, and Coran threw his head back laughing again, insisting that this story was better than the last.

Alfor was so sure he didn’t say anything _too_ dreadful to the ancient nymph, but as he and Coran sat by the tree, recollecting the last years of Alfor’s university years, he realized that he _had_ , in fact, said a little too much on some matters. “I can’t believe you and Blaytz had a thing. She’s calling him an attention-seeking manwhore.”

“That… sounds accurate, yes,” Alfor sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “And it wasn’t a very _long_ relationship. I wouldn’t even call it that.”

“You were head-over-heels for that twat,” Coran deadpanned, frowning at Alfor.

“So what if I was! I’m not anymore, that’s for sure!” he insisted.

“Really? Because Flerona says otherwise.”

“That—! That’s because she _assumes things she shouldn’t be assuming!_ ” he accused, scowling at Flerona. “It was a long time ago! I’ve been out of university for several years now!”

“Four years is _nothing_ compared to the years _she_ has on you,” Coran said. “She says it was… bad.”

Alfor blinked at Coran, who seemed hesitant to make eye contact as he kept his hand on one of Flerona’s roots to listen to her. Alfor cleared his throat, ducking his head to stare at his fingers. “From the inside, yes it was,” he confessed quietly. “I only talked to her about it because I couldn’t say much about it to Zarkon at the time.”

“But it wasn’t bad on the outside?”

He shook his head, confident that he had seemed completely okay to everyone. He mostly did that for Blaytz’s feelings, though Zarkon always insisted that Blaytz _had_ no feelings. Especially considering how great of a job he did crushing Alfor’s, well, _crush_.

“I’m an excellent liar when I have to be,” Alfor confessed. “I don’t think Blaytz ever realized how much I liked him at the time. He can be incredibly…”

“Inattentive? Blinded by his own ego? Negligent? All of the above?” Coran offered, and when Alfor sighed at him, he insisted, “Those were all from Flerona, not me! Not me, I swear.”

“You’ve met the man _once_ ,” he said to Coran. “And even then it’s not like you really know too much about him.”

“Yes… but in that time I learned that he is a hopeless flirt,” he insisted. “And Flerona here agrees with me.”

“And here I thought she was always on my side,” Alfor said.

“It’s difficult for nymphs to lie, you know,” he said. “I’d trust Flerona over you in a heartbeat.”

“Wow, that’s so touching,” he said sarcastically, leaning his head against Flerona’s bark. “Do you talk to nymphs often? You… did say that animals aren’t the greatest fans of them anymore.”

“I don’t mind them,” Coran confessed, smiling up at the great cork oak. “They’re excellent company, regardless of whether or not they talk back at you. And I always take care of them back at home in return for everything they do for me.”

“Like what?”

“They help with my garden,” he confessed. “I can’t imagine you see them in any form other than their natural ones, huh?”

Alfor shook his head, though he had seen illustrations of them in books. Nymphs were simply the spirits of nature, and they made up plants and elements and controlled them at will. Normally, though, they were quiet, passive creatures that took on the shapes of trees and sand, rocks and water. However, there were records of nymphs in the past showing themselves as humanoid beings to communicate with humans and the creatures of the forests. That was essentially how the pact between nymphs and humans were made in order to make functioning electricity for the city and other areas outside of Dalterion.

Coran eventually laid down in the grass nearby as Alfor thought about life with nymphs and how it would have been incredibly different had nymphs decided not to help humans during the divide between mankind and nature. As civilization developed, humans naturally drifted away from the beings who gave them magic and knowledge in the first place. Alfor never even considered what life would have been like had nymphs decided not to aid in mankind’s survival.

_We wouldn’t be using water for electricity, that’s for sure_ , he mused.

He wondered how incredible it must be to live in harmony with not only nymphs, but animals as well. He looked away from Flerona to where Coran was sprawled out on the ground with his orange hair fanned out between blades of grass. Being a shapeshifter was a rare occurrence now, and made Coran capable of being peaceful with all forms of nature, humans included. It was just a shame that he couldn’t appreciate the city life, and therefore, couldn’t convince himself to stay with humans.

“I was just thinking,” Alfor said, “and… I would like to see where you live one of these days. And you’ve already improved so much—you can shift when you want, despite little hiccups here and there.”

“Are… you saying I could go home now?” Coran blurted out, bolting up into a sitting position. 

Alfor laughed and said, “Only if you… can turn into a horse and give me a ride back to the shop.”

“I would never stoop so low! Get another horse to give you a ride,” Coran said, sticking his nose in the air and crossing his arms. He stood up and turned away from Alfor, who sat laughing between Flerona’s roots. Coran scoffed at him, giving him the side-eye before turning away again.

“I was _kidding!_ Dear gods,” Alfor giggled, pushing himself to his feet. “Since nothing seems to be going terribly wrong anymore, I’d safely say that you could return to your normal routine.”

“And… if something _goes_ terribly wrong?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

Alfor shrugged and said, “I can see what I can do. Though, if at all possible… stay away from the city if you _do_ revert back? Try and send a message with one of your messenger pigeons.”

Coran blurted out, “As if I would! I’m feeling better than ever, all thanks to _you!_ ” and swung his arm around Alfor’s neck as he was about to start heading back the way they came. They both staggered to the side, laughing as Alfor elbowed Coran in the ribs and yelped, “You’re being ridiculous— _again_!”

 

. . .

 

Blaytz worked near the shipyards on the riverside of Dalterion. Alfor had Blaytz’ work schedule memorized, and headed over after closing up his own shop. Coran followed along because Alfor could only tolerate Coran’s company when it wasn’t in secret. The approaching sunset followed them down the switchback roads cutting between neighborhoods and stores until they crossed the first of the bridges leading to the shipyards. The river was channeled between the brick fronts of mills churning the water as it gushed through with white-tipped currents that bubbled far below where Alfor and Coran stood looking down. 

The manmade canals were marked by the way they progressed in levels, and gradual drops that eventually emptied out farther down the river towards the ocean. Alfor explained the mills and the canals to Coran as they passed by warehouses on the riverside, and walked alongside metal railing intended to keep them from toppling over the edge. 

“This is all so… _artificial_ ,” Coran said, making a _bleh!_ sound.

“I don’t know. It’s industry, I guess,” Alfor said, twisting to the side to glance at Coran as he added, “A lot of hard work. Huh?”

“Yeah… you could say that,” he said, peering up at the windows, and the boards at wide door openings on the floors above them. They walked past an open set of doors where they could hear men and women at work, hauling supplies from inlets where the ocean water drifted in and deposited boats in the safe harbor of warehouses. 

They reached Blaytz’ workplace, and walked through to the ground floor where all the doors and windows were open, letting in the salty ocean breeze. The wind tugged at sheets of paper on desks that were held down by stone paperweights, and the sound of rustling sheaves carried like ocean currents that echoed in the brick building covered in white plaster. On their way to the stairs, Alfor found Coran marveling at illustrations and blueprints on the designers desks, and he was forced to grab Coran by the sleeve and tug him along to stop bothering the nervous, introverted workers on that first floor. 

The structure of the company Blaytz worked for led to many university interns to be stuck on that first floor where the summer breeze tugged at their papers, but as Blaytz moved up the employment latter, so did his position in the company. He was currently on the second floor where the desks were separated by office spaces. He shared a one-window room with another architect—the majority of their space was dedicated to the two drafting desks.

Alfor could see Blaytz in the lamplight where their open door and window pulled in light along with the breeze to chill the muggy, summer heat. He was perched on his stool, bent over the desk with his feet propped up, flat against the stool legs. He had his heel tapping against the metal to whatever song was playing on the phonograph in another room, and his normally perfectly slicked-back hair was now falling forward in the heat. 

Alfor knocked on the doorframe, and waved amiably at Blaytz’ officemate before addressing Blaytz himself. “Hey—hope you don’t mind us dropping by.”

“Not at all! I needed a break anyhow,” he said, placing his pen in a desk well before twisting to the side, and hopping off of his seat like he was an gymnast sticking a landing. “It’s stuffy in here—why don’t we chat out by the railing?”

As Blaytz led the way, Coran ducked into the office just to catch a glimpse of Blaytz’ sketches before being chased out by his officemate’s curious stare. Alfor glanced back to ensure that Coran was following as Blaytz said, “What brings you this way? Bit of a walk from your place.”

“Right! Well, I know you don’t answer the phone when you’re at work, and I wasn’t sure how long you’d stick around here tonight,” Alfor confessed, leaning up against the railing that overlooked the ground floor. 

“I get most of my work done at night because I can’t stand coming here in the daytime,” Blaytz confessed, plucking his shirt off of his chest with a sigh. “You know how it is.”

“Dreadful, I imagine.”

“ _Clearly_.”

“I was just coming by to ask if your boat is available for the weekend,” he confessed, and seemed to startle Blaytz with the question. “What? You said to ask if I ever wanted a trip out on the ocean.”

“ _Yes_ … but you _hate_ boats,” he reminded Alfor, who shrugged. Seasickness seemed far less intimidating when he wasn’t currently _seasick_. “What brings this up?”

“It’s to help Coran get back home—we wouldn’t take it over the waterfall! By any means! But it would take a good half a day just to _walk_ there,” Alfor explained.

“And he’s well enough to go?” Blaytz asked, and glanced to the side where Coran caught up to them and was now staring down over the railing. “You’re well enough?” 

“ _Clearly_ ,” Coran mimicked, which sent Blaytz laughing.

Blaytz drummed his hands on the railing and exclaimed, “Great! Oh my God—this is _awesome_. This is _going_ to be awesome. When were you planning on leaving?”

Alfor exchanged a look with Coran before wincing as he said, “Tomorrow morning… if at all possible?”

“Tomorrow _morning_?” Blaytz repeated, raising his eyebrows. “Why the rush? I mean, it’s not a problem, I’m just wondering.”

“Some of us are stir crazy,” Alfor said, pointing discreetly at Coran, who offered an apologetic smile to Blaytz. “And also, there’s no point in waiting when Coran is nearly completely better. The medicine seems to be working as well as can be expected.”

“And… what about the whole…” Blaytz faded off, gesturing to his own shoulder and circling where Coran’s skin still showed a bit of purple.

Coran tugged at the collar of the button-up shirt Alfor lent him and showed the speckled section of his skin that was still stained purple. It showed up more like a bruise now than the rash it was before. “It might just be a scar at this point,” Alfor confessed, causing them both to turn their attention away from the mark for the moment it took for Alfor to swallow hard. “I don’t… think there’s much I can do for a silvermarrow wound aside from what I’ve already done. The damage from the arrow head is… I think, what’s causing the wound to look as gruesome as it is.”

“ _Gruesome_? It’s beautiful,” Coran gasped, clasping a hand to his heart.

“It looks fine compared to what Zar described it as,” Blaytz commented. “He described the experience, and I quote, as ‘horrific.’”

“Of course he’d say that,” Alfor sighed, slouching forward to put his chin over his forearms on the railing. “For an officer, he really can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“Musta been nice, being unconscious for all that,” Blaytz asked Coran.

“I never even knew it was gruesome, truth be told,” he hummed. “I hardly remember the wounds I had. I can’t remember much from the shifts.”

“For the better, huh?” Blaytz clapped him on the back and pushed away from the railing. He stretched his arms over his head, and twisted his torso to and fro before dropping his arms with a hefty exhale. “I should be getting back to work if we’re planning this outing for tomorrow morning.”

Alfor blinked, startled by the assumption, and raised up to look at his friend. “‘ _We’_? But you don’t have to come,” he insisted.

“And who will drive the boat otherwise?” Blaytz laughed, hands on his broad hips. Alfor floundered for a moment before he was startled back into focus by Blaytz slapping him on the shoulder and saying, “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning! I’ll be at the docks around seven—does that sound good?”

“I—Uh, y-yeah, that sounds great,” Alfor stammered, flatting a hand over his lips as he watched Blaytz say goodbye to Coran and head back to his office. As soon as he was out of view, Alfor slumped with a quiet moan of distress, saying, “I hadn’t meant to bother him…”

“He didn’t seem too bothered to me,” Coran said.

Blaytz was too much of a people-pleaser to bother saying “no” once in a while, but Alfor couldn’t say so without feeling anxious about it. He wondered just how many plans Blaytz would have to cancel for this jaunt down the Taujeer Sound. Having gone through university with his extroverted friend, Alfor wouldn’t be surprised if Blaytz had dinner dates and parties planned for the weekend.

Though, since leaving university, they had all calmed down a lot. It might have had something to do with the Fateful Decline of Alfor’s Unrequited Love for Blaytz that led him to cease going to parties, but… they just became _tedious_. He always felt bad for taking up Zarkon’s free time that he could have spent out at house parties with Honerva. He still lamented that he was likely the cause of their constant avoidance-tactics. Alfor became Zarkon’s reasons for not wanting to hang out with Honerva after their brief fling during their third year of university.

Despite Alfor’s hesitance in bothering Blaytz with this, he and Coran showed up at the docks just after seven, when Blaytz was finishing up cleaning the inside of the boat. 

He leaned out onto the dock, hands on the plywood as he squinted up past Alfor’s shadow, “Sorry it’s a bit of a mess!”

“I don’t mind messes as much as Zar does,” Alfor confessed, hands on his hips.

Coran snorted and said, “Bit of an understatem— _ouchie!_ You pinched me!” Alfor stuck his nose up at Coran before taking Blaytz’ hand and hopping into the boat. Blaytz steadied him, laying a hand on Alfor’s shoulder before reaching for Coran, who was already in the boat without having made a sound. 

As Coran rubbed at the sore spot Alfor gave him on his good arm, Alfor steadied himself on one of the sails’ posts. He lowered himself to one of the seats that ducked below the boat’s ledges to avoid getting hit in the head by the sail when Blaytz cast it out on the water. The canvas dropped, and the blast of it being buffeted by the wind sent Coran into a startled tizzy. He ducked down and onto the seat as Blaytz stood with the ropes in hand, laughing until they both composed themselves. Alfor kept himself from laughing with the hand he clasped over his mouth—his smile was still visible from the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. 

“Have you ever been in a sailboat before?” Blaytz asked Coran, who shook his head frantically, clinging to the sides of the boat. Alfor ducked down to look underneath his seat, and stuffed the container of food into the compartment hiding spare ropes and flotation devices. He latched the door shut and popped up just in time to see Blaytz sitting beside Coran to show him how the sail worked. 

“It’s a lot easier than you might think, really—considering there’s not much magic involved, unless we start to slow, which might be useful on the Sound considering the wind isn’t as intense. But essentially I have control over the rudder with this dowel—it’s called the _tiller_ , and it controls the direction we go if the sail is at the correct angle,” Blaytz was saying as they coasted out of the harbor on the breeze and the gentle churn of the tide gradually slackening the farther out they went. 

The boat shifted with ever splash of water that licked up the sides of the hull. Alfor’s stomach sloshed with it, and he clasped onto the back ledge of his seat to keep as steady as possible. Alfor was wearing his loosest white shirt he could afford to get wet in the ocean mist, and he had it tucked in to a pair of summer pants. He had on a swimsuit underneath if things went awry. Coran was in similar gear considering Alfor didn’t have much else to offer aside from nearly-identical outfits that he stuck to on a daily basis. It was just a miracle that they were both approximately the same size. 

Alfor had always been considered “tall”, but it was nothing compared to Zarkon, who was still known for his brawny physique. Alfor was just thankful that he outgrew his coltish appearance from grade school. He’d been scrawny and clumsy back in the day when he and Zarkon became friends, and while he wasn’t scrawny anymore… he was still fairly clumsy.

Perhaps that was the reason why he loathed boat rides—they made him all tipsy-turvy again.

“The nymphs seem to enjoy boat rides,” Coran mused over the sound of waves lapping against the side of the boat, and the creak of the sail overhead.

“They can’t be getting much excitement out here—I bet boats are fun for them to toy with,” Blaytz said. 

“They help us control the wind currents, too,” Alfor added.

Coran had his eyes skyward despite the sunlight glaring at them all. Alfor squinted up, clasping a hand over his sunhat as he glanced behind them, to where they could see the city shoreline marked by great concrete barriers around the harbors. The shipyards gathered on either side of the city, and were defended by those colossal walls that bordered the white store fronts and red rooftops. The sky was a deep blue, and it melted between shades of navy and white where clouds collected farther north. 

Coran was smiling softly, and laughed quietly to himself, “They’re singing now.”

“How can you tell?” Blaytz asked.

“He can talk to nymphs,” Alfor said, and beamed at the way Blaytz raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You remember Flerona?”

“The tree? Gotta love that woman,” he said, shaking his head. “Wait—so Coran can talk to her? That’s incredible! What did she have to say?”

Coran burst into a giggle fit at the mention of Flerona and all she had to say on the matter of Blaytz. Alfor said, “You don’t want to know. She’s a snarky old woman.”

“I never pictured our dear Flerona to be a snarky old woman,” Blaytz said, offended by the accusation as though the attack was meant personally for him and his view of “their dear Flerona.”

Alfor rolled his eyes, only to be tossed to the side by a tide. He yelped, clutching to the edge of the boat with a groan as Blaytz threw his head back laughing. 

The fun nearly expired when a wave—likely thrown up by a nymph—doused Blaytz from Coran’s side, turning them both into soggy messes. Alfor gasped as a puddle of it collected at his shoes, only to burst into giggles at the sight of their disheveled faces. Coran’s wild mane of orange hair clung to the sides of his face, and Blaytz was no better—the gel in his hair did little to hold the water back from musing it up.

“Holy—” Blaytz started, stopping as Coran floundered to the side of the boat to peer over the edge at the water. Alfor was _certain_ Coran would flip off whatever nymph caused that, but instead he disappeared in a flash of light and _plunk!_ ed into the water in the shape of a hefty striped bass.

Less than a minute later of peering into the water and waiting for Coran to resurface, Blaytz screamed as something bubbled under the water, casting a deep black shadow beneath the boat. Alfor shrieked at the ocean parted around it. It glided across the surface, its slick, rigid spine blossoming at the peak where a spray of water erupted through the air hole. Water rained down on them, pattering over Alfor’s sunhat and dotting his white shirt and brown pants. 

Alarmed, Alfor gasped and stared at Blaytz, who was still drenched from the previous soaking. All at once Blaytz started laughing, practically howling when Coran dipped under the surface again in the body of a massive _whale_. When Coran resurfaced, he was back to his usual form, and his snobbish grin beamed up at them from the water.

Coran shimmied over to Alfor’s side, careful to keep the boat steady as he said, “We couldn’t be the only ones getting soaked.”

“ _Gods_ , so you decided to turn into a _whale_?” Alfor squeaked, tugging on his soaked hat as Coran thrust himself up as if to lunge into the boat. Both Blaytz and Alfor leant to the other side as the boat rocked, and kicked up water when Coran burst into a small spark of light that swept up into the air, and flitted its snow-white wings into the air. The seagull flashed upwards, shooting into a beam of light that arced into the form of a dolphin.

Alfor was certain his stomach was about to leap straight through his belly button. Every leap Coran took into the air sent more waves around them. Blaytz was on his feet, arms in the air, yelling with excitement. He screamed, “This is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever _seen!_ ”

“That makes one of us,” Alfor said, throat lurching to keep down his breakfast.

When Coran finally settled down, he zapped back into seagull, which flew to his seat beside Blaytz, and plunked back down with a gasp. His hair was askew, and his grin was lopsided around his mop of soaked facial hair, and he laughed as Blaytz all but tackled him, sending the boat shaking as he screamed, “That was by far the best water-show I’ve ever _seen!_ _Man!_ I wish more people could see that. Did you see that? Alfor—wasn’t that the coolest fucking thing you’ve ever seen?”

Alfor threw his hat off as saliva pooled in his mouth. He spat it out in the water, and an instant later, out came his breakfast. Blaytz swore and scrambled for the ginger under his seat for Alfor’s motion sickness.

 

. . .

 

The Taujeer Sound became surrounded by mountains in a matter of time, and they were shielded from the sunlight beneath their overarching peaks. Alfor had only seen them this up close during field studies and trips that required water travel, but even then he had been consumed by his studies to avoid the motion sickness—which perhaps… made the entire ordeal _worse_.

Thankfully, Coran didn’t horse around after that. He seemed to get all of that energy out of his system during that time, which left him relaxed and patient during the journey. He reclined back on the seat with his arms propped up over the lip of their little inlet on the boat. Alfor envied his nonchalantness in being on a sailboat. 

“Seems like the waterfall is coming up,” Coran commented.

“How can you tell?” Blaytz asked. Not many people went as far as the _big_ waterfall in fear of having their boats sucked into it.

“I can hear it. Faintly, though—it’s a ways off,” Coran reassured them, sitting up a bit further to squint at the shoreline on either side. He hummed to himself, drumming his fingers over his beard as he glanced at Alfor. “I think we should pull off to the side soon. You… mentioned you wanted to see where I live, right? We could hike from there.”

“Yeah! That works fine,” Alfor said, and looked to Blaytz, who shrugged. “Would… you want to come with us? I can’t exactly expect you to sit around on the boat alone while we’re both off.”

“I couldn’t invite myself—only if Coran’s okay with it,” he insisted, waving his hands in the air. Coran shrugged and offered his assent, so it was settled—the three of them would park the sailboat on a slab of stone jutting out into the water. The riverbed was exposed and made for layers of flat rocks that they staked the boat to before climbing up between two layers of rock lined with moss and vines. 

The ravine faded away, but required a bit of climbing to get all the way through, and Alfor was invigorated by the exercise. He suppose it helped that he felt compelled to prove himself athletic enough for the hike, especially when Coran was hopping to and fro and lunging from one rock to the other until he leapt out onto the forest with a deep breath in, saying, “Ah—clean mountain air.”

“What—are you saying our air is filthy?” Blaytz laughed.

“It’s stale, is what I’m saying.”

“ _Rude_ ,” he said in mock offense. Alfor nudged him in the side and continued on his way after Coran. “What? I’m just being honest!”

Alfor insisted he wanted to see the waterfalls, and so Coran took them on a precarious route that overlooked the gorge where the Sound tapered off into the makings of a river that wound between the mountains. Alfor stood in awe of the magnificent descent they took down the edge of the waterfall so many people avoided in fear of losing their boats and ships. The roar was so tremendous that they had to yell to be heard, and it remained that way until the waterfall was just a mere hum behind them.

They remained above the gorge where Coran carried them over fallen tree trunks that bridged the gap between rivers converging at the steep drop. When there weren’t waterfalls, there was water dribbling between the cracks of rocks, peppering the background of rustling leaves that dappled sunlight over them through pine trees. They emerged in a blank outcropping of rocks, and Coran threw his arms in the air, and Blaytz mimicked him, and on Blaytz’s mark, they both yelled so that their voices echoed back to them. 

“This is _beautiful!_ ” Alfor exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything _like this!_ ”

“You might have seen a part of this from the train tracks,” Blaytz said. “To get to Thayserix, the train to Arus branches off and heads north farther down that way.”

“Train tracks?” Coran repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Are you talking about that bridge where that huge _thing_ goes by?” 

“You mean… the _train_?” Alfor said, and giggled even as Coran frowned at him. “It carries people and supplies from one place to another.”

“Isn’t that what your cars are for though?” he asked, and Blaytz chuckled, clapping Coran on the shoulder as he headed back towards the forest.

“You have a _lot_ to learn…” he sighed. “Let’s keep moving. How much farther do you think it is?”

Coran looked out through the trees, pointing down the way and saying, “It should just be another half mile that—”

He hesitated, expression falling, though his eyes widened further as he hurried farther to the edge of the outcropping to stare down the riverbank. Alfor hurried after him, asking, “What? What is it?”

Coran held up his hand, silencing him. He stayed frozen like a statue for another second before cursing, running past Blaytz and lunging into the glimpse of light that exploded into the form of a buck darting between the trees. Blaytz shouted in alarm, and yelled at Alfor as he took off sprinting after Coran. Even as he tried to keep up, he lost sight of Coran’s white tail in just a matter of seconds. He dodged between the trees and disappeared before Alfor even lost his breath running.

Blaytz jogged close behind, both of their breaths labored. They were sucking in dense air, and the smell of it told Alfor that it was more than just the elevation. 

Tree bark became covered in soot, and specks of it still fell with dying leaves and pine tree needles. Their boots crunched over dead embers the farther in they went, and at the epicenter of grey ash stood the lone buck, petrified around a flattened mound of dust. Stone was littered around it, parts of it still structured in what must have been the foundation of Coran’s home.

Alfor slowed, breathing hard, heart burning in his chest with how rapidly a beat against his ribcage. He couldn’t say anything without his throat closing up, and tasting the bile again. He tried to picture what Coran’s home once was, but he couldn’t even see a speck of what must have been the garden, stretching far out towards the break in the trees, or where there even _used_ to be trees. Every last pine was flattened within a quarter-mile radius—either that, or snapped to stubs, painted black with charcoal. 

Blaytz stepped up beside Alfor, hands in his hair. His boots crushed against the long-since cold ashes. “What the hell happened…?” he breathed, but Coran had yet to move from where he stood amidst the rubble. 

Coran lowered his head, and a fissure of light rippled down from his antlers, coating him in a fresh white glow that placed him closer to the ground.

Alfor walked over, briefly acknowledged by Coran glancing at them and back again to the ashes. The skin around his pale eyes was red. Alfor knelt beside him, and laid a hand on Coran’s shoulder blades. After a moment, he rubbed his hand up and down, and accepted that Coran wasn’t likely used to human affection, but sometimes it was necessary. 

Blaytz stepped over just as something black fell from the sky. Alfor half-expected it to be a dead leaf, but it was far too large to account for that. The black-winged bird dropped onto one of the stones that was painted over with soot and hopped down to press its beak up to Coran. Coran rubbed his hand over his eyes, clearing his throat before reaching over to the raven.

Alfor had never seen a raven so up-close before, and was startled by its size and weight as it hopped onto Coran’s wrist. Its claws were tough and rigid where they clamped onto Coran with the same sleek surface as the beak it opened up. A sharp clicking noise came out.

“The hunters,” Coran croaked as the raven flew away. He fell forward onto his hands, and Alfor felt the muscles across his shoulder blades tense as he clenched his fists in the ashes. “The hunters _did this_. They _ruined—_ ”

Coran squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to the ground before screaming. Alfor jumped, startled, and Blaytz took a step back as Coran shoved himself off the ground, face red with anger. “Your people ruin _everything!_ You ruin _everything you touch_!” he screamed, turning on Alfor and Blaytz. 

Alfor scrambled to his feet, preparing to say something, but Coran burst into tears before he could say a word. His reddened eyes bubbled over with water that he tried to push back with the heels of his palms. 

“We’ll find out who did this, I _promise—_ ” Alfor insisted, interrupted by Coran screaming, “ _No!_ ”

Blaytz put an arm in front of Alfor, struck by the way Coran glowered at them. “I don’t _want_ your help!” Coran seethed. “I don’t need _anything from you!_ Humans are only good for _ruining innocent lives!_ This—This wasn’t _just_ my home! I don’t—I don’t _care_ about the _building_ or the _shit inside of it!_ Y-You ruined the only safe place my friends had from your _fucking hunters!_ ”

“I would _never_ condone—” Alfor tried saying, but Coran was gone. 

He flared up in a bolt of light that shot into the air. A gust of wind took off with the wings of the hawk that carried Coran over the wreckage. Dust kicked up over their boots and pants as they watched Coran glide away with the raven following close behind.


	6. i can show you the world...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SHINING. SHIMMERING. SLENDID.**

Near dinner time, Blaytz left to check that the boat hadn’t drifted off, and also to grab the snacks Alfor stashed under his seat. When Blaytz returned, Alfor could tell exactly what his friend was thinking. It was illogical of him to want to stay and wait for Coran’s return. Leaving behind someone Alfor considered a friend seemed almost too dreadful to fathom. 

“I don’t understand why he would accuse _us_ of being the cause of this,” Alfor confessed quietly as Blaytz came to sit alongside him. They were on the edge of the gorge, with their feet dangling off the rocks as Blaytz unwrapped a plain vegetarian sandwich. “That one was for Coran,” he murmured quietly. Blaytz politely wrapped it back up.

“People say stupid things when they’re angry…” he sighed, and Alfor couldn’t help let the guilt manifest into hot tears that stuck behind his eyes. “It’s not your fault he got angry, Alfor.”

He discreetly rubbed his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t _actually_ crying. “I know. I suppose… I don’t really know him all that well.”

Blaytz didn’t say anything. He waited until after they had both finished eating and rested on full stomachs to say, “We can’t wait around all day for him to come back.”

“But where will he stay?” Alfor said, settling back with his hands over his stomach.

“He’s a shapeshifter—he can turn into whatever animal he wants and sleep in a _bear’s den_ for all he cares,” he said, leaning over Alfor so that he couldn’t avoid Blaytz’ eye contact. Blaytz pursed his lips, frowning down at Alfor. He could already tell what Blaytz was going to say just from that look alone. “We can’t stay here all day, Alfor. We need to go home.”

Alfor bunched up the fabric his sandwich was wrapped in. After a moment of staring down the river, he pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his pants, though they were stained anyways and would need a thorough washing to get rid of the charcoal on his knees. The sun was beating down on them now, and without the tree canopy, Alfor could feel the heat sticking to his skin like honey. It was muggy and _hot_ and the urge to cry became so much stronger because of it. He had never felt so furious with people in his _life_ , and he couldn’t cope with the anger in any other way than this. It bubbled over and made his chest throb, like his lungs were full of cotton and he was trying to _breathe_ past it all.

“I just—I don’t understand why hunters go after shapeshifters in the first place,” he said, voice wavering as he faced the remnants of Coran’s house. 

Blaytz rose to his feet to follow after Alfor. He took the container of food with him, saying, “I don’t think they view shapeshifters as humans much anymore.”

“Technically they aren’t—they’re _everything_ ,” he insisted, shoulders slumping. “They aren’t just _one thing_. I don’t think people understand that shapeshifters are the bridge between—between _us_ and a greater understanding! The only way we could ever understand nature would be if we accepted shapeshifters.”

“People don’t want to understand nature, though,” Blaytz said, and ducked his head when Alfor turned to him in astonishment. “They… want things they can’t control, and when they can’t control it… they destroy it. It’s like… how you view Coran’s infection—it made Coran out of control, and… you were there to take out the infection.”

“But that’s completely different—nature isn’t an _infection_. We depend on it for a lot of things,” Alfor insisted. “Imagine how easier it would be to produce food if we had nature on our side? We wouldn’t have to beat it into submission with domesticated mules and horses with plows and—”

“I can’t—I can’t _speak_ for them,” his friend insisted, exasperated. “I just _work for them_. You think we all have the same opinions but we _don’t—_ ”

“I never thought that—”

“Yes, but _Coran_ thinks that,” Blaytz said. “And… the opinions of the hunters are just a small percentage of what makes up a shitty civilization.”

Alfor scoffed, brushing his wrist over his eyes. “You know, this reminds me a _whole_ lot of those debates we used to go to in your friends’ basements,” he said with a laugh.

Blaytz chuckled, tossing an arm over Alfor’s shoulder and giving him a squeeze. “You liked them though, huh?” Alfor nodded, grinning as Blaytz threw his other arm around Alfor and shook them both. “ _I knew it!_ I _knew_ you always loved fighting people!”

“Do not!” he cried out, and dissolved into a fit of giggles when Blaytz crushed them together so the cotton in his lungs felt more like flower petals tickling his insides.

Alfor pulled away after a moment to fix his hat, and around that time, they were met with a flash of black feathers descending from the sky. In the midst of dropping down, a jolt of light went through it, and Alfor gasped so hard he started coughing when he inhaled some ash. 

A flurry of birds came down with Coran hawk-form, and they settled on the rocks and pebbles, and the charred tips of broken tree trunks. One landed itself on Blaytz’ shoulder, and he tried not to panic as the bird’s claws unintentionally sunk deeper into the fabric of his shirt. When Coran materialized on the far outskirts of the flattened ash, he spoke at the same time Alfor tried to reassure him.

“You shouldn’t—”

“I know we can’t bring back your safety,” Alfor said, stopping Coran in his tracks. “And I know the forest is your home, but- but I _really do think_ what you do and everything you are is- is _incredible_.”

Coran turned around, staring at Alfor across the gap that divided humans from that greater understanding. It was difficult to Alfor to visualize it without placing Coran on the bridge over that divide, but… that just wasn’t how their minds functioned. There was no way for Coran to accept mankind, especially after this. 

“I’ll help you find the hunters that did this,” Alfor promised.

“Alfor—” Blaytz started, but Alfor silenced him by raising his hand up, stepping closer to Coran.

“I can’t—” Coran tried, voice trailing off as he swallowed hard. “I can’t accept…”

“Would you rather fester then?” Alfor accused, getting exactly the reaction he hoped for. Coran’s shoulders bunched up, anger bristling his expression. “Is your hatred so appealing that you’d rather wallow in it instead of _do something about it_?

“I’m not saying that you should take out your anger on people. But… we have to prove to people that this is _wrong_. They can’t ruin others’ lives like this, regardless of whether or not they’re human or shapeshifter,” he said, approaching Coran even as the man glared at him in warning.

Coran didn’t fight back. He leaned away, yes, but he kept his eyes on Alfor’s as he reached a hand out. Coran glanced down at Alfor’s outstretched hand, and took a moment to address the birds chirping around them. 

“Come back to Dalterion with me,” Alfor said, feeling his cheeks heat up as Coran’s attention bolted back to him, surprised by the offer. “You can stay with me until we find the hunters and we can figure out a way to get you materials to rebuild your home. I don’t know how long that will take, but… my home will always be your home.”

Coran looked away for a moment, his breath passing sharp between his lips before he worried his bottom lip between his teeth. The birds were chattering away like an oncoming thundercloud, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. They weren’t intending to drive Alfor away, though they _were_ gathering around Blaytz.

“I wish—” Coran started, voice cracking. He cleared his throat to say, head down, “I wish you could see what I see.”

“Then show me,” Alfor declared. “I want to know what it is that pisses you off so much about the way we live.”

“Alfor…”

“I’m serious! And then that way, I can show you what I love so much about Dalterion! It’s more than just what you think it is,” he insisted. He jolted his hand forward again, determined. “Come back to Dalterion with me—please.”

Coran turned his eyes up to the sky, cursing under his breath as he clasped his hand onto Alfor’s. They shook on it, and before Alfor could stop himself, he squealed with excitement and flung himself at Coran. They collided as Coran laughed, hesitantly putting his arms around Alfor just as Blaytz came up beside them and squished the three of them together. Alfor lost his breath when Blaytz lifted his feet off the ground. 

“I swear you two are trying to convince me _not_ to go through with this,” Coran squeaked out in a short breath before he was given air again. He staggered back onto the ground, away from them as Blaytz tossed his head back laughing.

Alfor clasped his hand to his sunhat, trying not to giggle and failing miserably at it.

 

* * *

 

The trip back to the Dalterion harbor was far less exciting, and far less tolerable than before. The snacks Alfor packed weren’t made for two entire meals, which left them all tired, hungry, and completely done with the day. By the time Blaytz docked the boat and collapsed the sail, the sun was nearly gone from the sky. Alfor’s bum hurt from sitting for so long, and as he stretched on the dock, all of his limbs cracked. 

Coran bent forward to touch his fingers to his toes, and sprung right back up to twist his torso to and fro. “Can’t say that was the most _comfortable_ ride,” he confessed.

“Yeah… unfortunately cushions would just get soaked and moldy,” Blaytz said apologetically, wincing as he climbed out and handed the empty food container to Alfor. “Do you two need a ride back to the shop?”

“Oh! Um… I was actually thinking about stopping by Honerva’s place—”

“ _Honerva!_ By The Ancients, I haven’t seen her in _ages_ —well, aside from work now and again,” Blaytz said, waving his hand dismissively. “I swear that woman secretly hates me.”

“She hates the slew of women you’ve dated,” Alfor corrected him, voice dull as he started to walk off with Coran at his side. With all the sunlight they got that day, Alfor looked down at his arms and how his copper-colored skin looked now, contrasted against the flecks of white arm hair. He tugged his shirt sleeves over them and said, “I seemed to have tanned a bit.”

“What’s wrong with getting a tan?” Coran asked, pressing a hand to his pinkish forehead. “It’s better than me—all I do is _burn_.”

“You’re such a wuss, Coran,” Blaytz said, nudging him in the back.

“Could you imagine having an ego so large that it supposedly blocks the deadly rays of the sun?” Alfor said quizzically, causing Blaytz to gasp in offense, and Coran to burst into laughter.

They reached Blaytz’ car where Alfor asked, “Are you sure it’s okay that we take a pits—TOP!” Blaytz grabbed him under the arms and hefted him into the passenger’s seat. He bumped the door closed with his hip before opening the back door for Coran, gesturing as if to say, “After you.”

Coran stared at the contraption in bewilderment, and seemed hesitate to put a foot in it. “I swear it’s safe,” Blaytz told him. “I’m an excellent driver.”

“The nymphs say otherwise about _most_ drivers,” Coran remarked, heaving himself up and into the backseat. Alfor offered a smile to him, which wasn’t returned. “It’s… been a while since I was in a _vehicle_.”

“I don’t blame you for being nervous then,” Alfor said. 

When they arrived at the front of the tea shop beneath Honerva’s apartment, Coran practically threw himself out of the door with a shudder, standing tense on the curb as he exclaimed, “I _hate cars_.”

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Blaytz laughed, stepping out and swinging his keys around his finger. 

Alfor passed them to knock on Honerva’s door. They could hear her footsteps hurrying down the stairs a minute later, which prompted Blaytz to lean up against the frame so that when she opened the door, he was there smirking at her and saying, “Long time no see.”

Her expression fell into a dull glare of annoyance that flipped into a smile when she turned to Alfor. “Lovely seeing you again,” she told him.

“Well what about me?” Blaytz whined. “We _work_ together!”

“Yeah, _on occasion_ ,” she remarked, reaching out to pinch him on the arm. Blaytz ducked out of the way, swinging his arm out of her reach.

Honerva’s hair was in a messy bun on the top of her head, topped with a headband made out of a cloth that was tied into a bow. She likely just got off of work, which Alfor knew as the time where she dressed down and hunkered in for the night. She wasn’t expecting guests, and was covered in a robe tied at the waist. 

She glanced over the three of them as Alfor inspected her apparel and said, “What were you three up to? A bit of swimming?”

“Field trip out on the boat,” Blaytz said. “I was just driving them back home, but Alfor wanted to stop by here first.”

“How thoughtful of you Blaytz, I never knew you were a gentleman,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest as Alfor covered his smile with his hand. “So what is it? What brings you here?” she asked Alfor then.

“It’s about your date with Zar,” he confessed. “I was thinking tomorrow afternoon? Zar doesn’t work weekends so I figured…”

“Oh,” she said, perking up instantly. “Well, um… what time were you thinking? Where?”

“Around noon for lunch, maybe?” he suggested. “And I won’t be telling Zar so you can’t mention anything about it if he calls sometime between now and then.”

“What, are you planning their date or something?” Blaytz asked him, and when neither Honerva nor Alfor said anything, he burst out laughing. “You two are hopeless! Holy shit.”

“I know,” Honerva grumbled, scowling at Blaytz before turning her eyes hesitantly up to Alfor’s. “I wish you could be in two places at once. It’ll be torture just getting through the door.”

“Well… Maybe Blaytz could escort you to the date?” Alfor suggested.

Both Honerva and Blaytz recoiled at the idea. Honerva exploded with a fast, “Oh no, no way—” and Blaytz squeaked, “Ex _cuse me?_ ” 

“It’ll just be for the afternoon! You wouldn’t have to hang out with us on the date,” Alfor insisted to Blaytz, who dragged his hands over his freshly shaven face, eyes pleading for Alfor to retract the idea. “Oh, come on, it won’t be the end of the world. You just have to make sure Honerva gets out of the house on time.”

“On second thought, I think my self-control is fine I should be able to handle this,” Honerva insisted, about to turn around and head back inside when Alfor grabbed her by the arm, and Blaytz by the hand.

“The last time you said that, you stood Zar up and he called me from a _phone booth_ in a drunken, blubbering mess,” Alfor said to her, and she scowled at her feet. “And Blaytz, you _literally_ just have to get her to the restaurant. And then you can go. Deal?”

Honerva sighed, shoulders slumping as she glared at Blaytz, who rolled his eyes and grumbled his approval.

 

* * *

 

Alfor called Zarkon the next day the moment he woke up and tripped over Coran’s sleeping body an inch from where his door opened. His foot caught on Coran’s wolf fur, all bristly and heavy, and he staggered to the side to avoid stepping on Coran. “I tell you to stop sneaking in through the window, and you aim to trip me as soon as I get up?” Alfor whined, marching to the phone as Coran rolled up and stretched out his paws. It was starting to seem _normal_ , finding predatory animals lounging in his kitchen.

He grumbled to himself as he dialed up Zarkon’s number. “Hey! How are you?” he said, tweaking his voice to seem less groggy from the morning.

“Wow, impatient much? I didn’t even say ‘hello’ yet,” Zarkon laughed. “I’m fine—I just got back from taking Beezer out—”

“Would you want to come over for lunch?” he asked, and held a hand over the phone as Coran’s yawn sounded across the apartment, “You’re such a little _liar_ …” Alfor stuck his tongue out at Coran. “I think I’d like to go out for lunch. Wear something nice—but not formal!”

“Uh, sure, yeah—I didn’t see you… at _all_ yesterday. I stopped by your shop and—”

“I’ve got to get going! Coran is chewing a hole through my shoes—! ” Alfor cried out dramatically, and hung up the phone with a flourish. He turned, hands on his hips, and beamed at Coran, who was definitely _not_ eating Alfor’s shoes.

“You’re turning me into a demon,” Coran accused. 

“Am not. I doubt Zar even bought that,” he said, pushing his chin up. Coran put on one of his monotonous expressions, hardly amused by Alfor’s antics. “Oh, come on. It’s _funny_!”

“You and I have _awfully_ different views on what classifies as ‘ _funny_ ’,” he replied, climbing onto one of the dining table chairs with a knee up, and his arms around it. Alfor scowled at him, and Coran narrowed his eyes back at him. They stared each other down as Alfor caught onto the hint of pink still on Coran’s nose, and the freckles that sprouted from sunlight exposure. They were more vibrant now, and dipped underneath Coran’s mane of ginger hair that seemed to grow an inch every day.

Alfor put a hand to his chin, squinting at his new flatmate, and realizing exactly what people saw on the surface. Full-grown beards weren’t even in style these days.

Coran recoiled a bit from Alfor’s intense gaze, and hesitated to say, “It… looks like you’re _planning_ something… You look at your potions like that.”

“Shut up—I’m thinking,” he demanded, flicking his hand at Coran before doing a double-take to his bedroom door. He hurried off, telling Coran to wait a moment, and tore through his bathroom cupboards in search of his razor kit and combs. 

The second Alfor dragged Coran into the bathroom where he had the sink full of water, Coran burst into a flurry of cat fur and tried to scramble out of Alfor’s arms. Despite the claw marks now riddling Alfor’s arms, he managed to shut the door and sit Coran on a wooden stool. His tabby fur was flaring up and out into the round shape of a sphere, and when Coran burst back into his human form, he had his arms crossed and head turned away so he wouldn’t have to watch Alfor take a scissors to his beard.

Alfor grinned whenever Coran spared a single glance at him. Coran grudgingly sat through the grooming, and even seemed to preen as Alfor had him smother foam all over his cheeks and chin and neck. “This smells heavenly,” Coran said, but instantly stuck his nose up. “That’s not to say I like this one bit.”

“Cheer up…” Alfor coaxed.

“You’ll regret this.”

“I’m sure I will. Now sit still so I don’t nick you.”

Alfor knelt beside the stool and slicked his razor over Coran’s orange hair, flattening it close to Coran’s pale skin. As the foam was washed away, the once unruly beard took the shape of what Blaytz used to call his rugged-but-handsome-lazy-day shave. Alfor saw it enough during university considering Blaytz couldn’t be bothered to shave so close until _after_ he wasn’t required to wake up at the crack of dawn.

Alfor stood, cleaning off the razors and scissors, and glanced up at the mirror to find Coran standing behind him, lathering his hands over his trimmed whiskers. He had a calculating look on his face that turned into a grin when he caught Alfor’s gaze. 

“Not half bad,” he said, and Alfor just about popped a blood vessel. As Coran left the bathroom, Alfor clutched a hand to his blushing face. _You’re such an idiot_ , he told himself, clearing his throat and hurriedly putting away all of his tools in hopes of distracting from how much Coran’s uncovered smile pierced his heart.

With the shop closed for the weekend, Alfor busied himself with tidying up so the sight of Alfor and Coran’s mess wouldn’t give Zarkon a hernia. It wasn’t much of an improvement, considering the second Zarkon set foot into the flat, he sighed, shoulders slumping, and said, “I can… tell that you _tried_ …?”

Alfor slumped. “That bad, huh?” he sighed.

“Told you,” Coran said, dropping onto the couch, only to spring back up the second Alfor tugged Zarkon through the bedroom door. He chased them in and claimed a spot on the bed to watch as Alfor double-checked that his own outfit was fine before seeing Zarkon raise an eyebrow at him through the mirror, and then glare at Coran, who peeked up from behind them.

“What’s this about? Where are we going for lunch?” Zarkon asked as Alfor flicked aside Zarkon’s coat flaps to check the color of his vest, his brown leather suspenders, his tie, his collared shirt. Alfor straighten out the jacket and stretched his hands up to Zarkon’s hair, which wasn’t even gelled or fixed at all. 

_Honerva always_ did _say she liked when he looked more put-together_ … Alfor hummed internally, heading to his bathroom and coming back with a jar of hair gel.

“Alfor,” Zarkon said.

“Hm?”

“Aren’t you going to answer the question?” he laughed. “You’re zoning a lot today.”

“Oh! Um… it’s a _surprise_. We’ve been there before though, so you’ll like it,” he promised. “Now—fix up your hair. I need to grab something real quick.”

Alfor lunged over the bed, sending Coran bouncing on the mattress. As he dug through his oils and colognes, Zarkon leaned over towards the mirror, combing his fingers through his black hair as he asked, “So you never said what you were up to yesterday.”

“Oh, nothing really…”

“Likely story,” Zarkon scuffed, and when Alfor glared at him, he was intercepted by Coran’s smugness. He stuck his tongue out at Coran, who did the same, and they were both in view of Zarkon raising his eyebrows at them. “What did you do…”

“We… took a trip to Coran’s house,” Alfor said casually, ducking down out of view behind the bed. “We may or may not have taken Blaytz with us on the boat, found out the hunters burned Coran’s house down, and now he’s living with me until further notice.”

Alfor winced even as he said it, and peered up only to find that Zarkon was five steps closer, eyes the size of the moons. They stared at one another, and Alfor felt the irrational, yet strong desire to burst out laughing. Zarkon challenged him with an exasperated expression, leaning back on his heels and turning away for a second to purse his lips, put his hands on his hips, and take in the fact that Coran was on the bed looking like a sly dog who just stole a jar of cookies from the counter.

“Alfor,” Zarkon said, jabbing a thumb at the door. “Can we talk in private for a second?”

He followed Zarkon out the door, snickering all along the way as his friend practically fumed down the steps of the store. Alfor was surprised that he didn’t float up in the hot steam that was erupting from his ears. The second they were at the landing, Zarkon turned on Alfor from where he stood a step above—they were the same height now. 

“It’s honestly not that big of a deal,” Alfor laughed. “He’s been living with me for a week already.”

“Excuse me—but _what?_ ” Zarkon hissed. “Not that big of a deal?”

“Zar…”

“You know what? I always _knew_ you had a thing for gingers. I always fucking _knew it_ ,” he snapped, and Alfor’s laughter turned into a gasp of offense.

“It’s _not like that!_ ” he cried out.

“I know you better than your own _mother!_ ” Zarkon exclaimed. 

Alfor put his hands on his head, unable to stop giggling. “Dear gods, you’re being so ridiculous.”

“You can’t just— _Alfor!_ Holy _fuck—!_ ” he said, throwing his arms out. “And his _house burned down?_ You said _hunters?_ ”

“Yeah, so I’m giving him a place to stay until—”

“Until _what?_ You two get _married?_ ” he shrieked, and Alfor leapt to cover his mouth, but it wouldn’t do much considering Coran’s excellent hearing anyways. _Hopefully our sense of humor coincides with this…_ he begged internally. 

Zarkon tried slapping Alfor’s hands off of him, but they just ended up in a cat-fight by flinging arms at each other as Alfor tried to cover the profanities spewing from Zarkon’s mouth. “We—are—not—doing this right now!” Alfor cried out, shoving Zarkon’s hands down and holding them there. After a second, he stepped away with a huff, straightening out his jacket. “I’m hungry. Let’s get going. _Coran!_ We’ll be out for a few hours!”

“‘Kay!” Coran shouted from the second floor, above the sound of Zarkon grumbling after Alfor through the front door.

Zarkon grumbled all the way down the street. He muttered profanities up the hill and trailed a few steps behind Alfor just to scowl at the back of Alfor’s head and probably contemplate the _sins_ that were likely taking place in his best friend’s household. How could Alfor just _let people into his life like that?_ The last time that happened, Blaytz ended up crushing Alfor’s heart into a thousand pieces that he had to go and piece back together again. Of course, Zarkon would always be there to put Alfor’s heart back together, but it didn’t mean he’d _enjoy it_. 

He preferred to keep that outcome as far away as possible, and that meant keeping Coran on a tight leash. But how would he do that when Alfor and Coran were _living under the same roof?_ It was fucking irrational, that’s what it was. For someone who was so logical, Alfor could really be a pain in the—

Zarkon’s attention caught on something purple, and he stopped walking the second he saw it. He’d recognize that purple umbrella _anywhere_.

“Oh no…” he groaned, and Alfor turned to him to watch Zarkon moan, “You _tricked me_ …”

He hadn’t even realized he was starting to back away until Alfor lunged forward and grabbed him by the arm. “Oh no you don’t—you’re coming with me,” he said, and Zarkon swore he never heard Alfor so fierce in his life. Even the grip Alfor had on his arm was constricting.

Zarkon tried to hold onto the nearest lamppost, and he clung to it with all his might as Alfor dug his heels into the concrete and heaved.

In the midst of their struggling, Zarkon saw the instant Honerva’s umbrella lifted, and he lunged off of the lamppost, startling Alfor, and steadied them both so it didn’t look like they were a bunch of idiotic school boys. He caught a glimpse of the man standing beside her, and sighed to himself, _Blaytz—I should have known_. His friend waved frantically while Honerva wasn’t looking, but Zarkon was too busy trying to keep his jaw off the grown.

Her lavender grey dress blended with the dark, bronzed skin color, and it hugged her arms and faded into her white gloves that accented her waist sash. It was a far frillier look that Zarkon knew she was comfortable with, but she was still wearing her usual boots and black leggings underneath the dress skirt. Her brown hair was tied up in a braid that tucked into her bun, and it wasn’t until he noticed it that he realized that he was _close enough to see it_.

“So, you guys made it,” Blaytz said, momentarily distracting Zarkon from the fact that Honerva’s cheeks darkened when their eyes met, realizing that they had both been staring at one another. 

“Yes! We’re good from here,” Alfor said. “Thanks for helping out.”

“Not a problem,” Blaytz said, taking a bow of sorts to Honerva, who pursed her lips with a pout and looked away. Blaytz laughed, giving her umbrella a flick before saluting Zarkon. “Go get ‘em tiger.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Zarkon huffed under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Tumblr :)](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)


	7. date night

As Blaytz sauntered off, Zarkon turned to Alfor and said, “I can’t believe you enlisted his help.”

“He’s been on enough dates to know how they work,” Alfor admitted, and none of them could argue with it. “Which is to say… you realize that this _is_ a date, right?”

Zarkon sighed, rolling his eyes but somehow managing a smile when he caught Honerva’s eye. “Yes, I do,” he said. “And what are you still doing here?”

“I’m going on the date with you two,” he declared, and at Zarkon’s shock, Honerva seemed hardly phased. 

She nudged him in the arm and said, “Nothing ever goes right when Alfor’s not around. You have to admit that much.”

Zarkon tried to argue against it, but failed. The last time he and Honerva had an excellent date was when the three of them went to the farmer’s market—unintentionally, anyways. Zarkon and Alfor had been grocery shopping when they stumbled across Honerva, and spent the rest of the day with her. It turned into a date the second Alfor convinced them all to eat out at the park, and there they sat flirting and being ridiculous until Alfor had to leave. 

Aside from that, though, they had a date washed out with a downpour—and not even the _fun_ kind. It was disgusting and wet and _dark_ , and with the lightning they were both sure they were going to die on the walk back. There had been a date that took place on the course to the restaurant, getting lost, getting lost again, and walking five miles across the city before deciding that their feet couldn’t take it any longer. It would have been fun had it not been swelteringly _hot out_. And they couldn’t even blame the weather because there had been another occasion where the heat drove them to the shore where Alfor made the whole idea of “swimming suits” less awkward by wearing his ridiculous striped swimming suit that Zarkon always threatened to throw out in the trash.

And those didn’t even include the almost-dates and the nonexistent ones that spawned from the fear that they’d be cursed with yet another awful get-together that would convince them both that their chemistry wasn’t worth the hassle.

“I guess you’re right—but that doesn’t make me any less furious with you for tricking me,” Zarkon insisted, but Alfor was already walking ahead of them. “H-Hey—! I still have to yell at you—!”

“You already yelled at me once today!” Alfor called out, all but skipping ahead of them. Zarkon was about to chase after him, but Honerva slipped her umbrella in front of him, blocking his path.

One of her trimmed eyebrows raised, challengingly, as she said, “Well aren’t you gonna take my arm? Or am I going to have to walk alone?”

She lifted an elbow up to him, and he took it before his brain could convince him to _run and never look back_. Anyone as brilliant as Honerva wouldn’t think twice about him, or so he convinced himself. And yet somehow he found himself with her arm in his, and they were following after that smug sonuvabitch, who’s white hair was tied back into a ponytail, and he was practically glowing with excitement. 

“Was this really necessary…” Zarkon groaned under his breath to Honerva. 

“Entirely,” she said. “Besides—sometimes I prefer Alfor’s company over your’s.”

“ _Ooh_ , harsh,” he laughed. 

They approached the end of the street, which criss-crossed into a wide open street that cut off into five different roads. As soon as Alfor led them down the next road, Zarkon knew exactly where they were heading. They hadn’t gone here since early in their university years when neither of them were familiar with Dalterion, and someone recommended the place. It looked just as it did all those years ago, and it was a relief to see it again.

“Bit of a throw-back,” he commented as he paused at the multitude of signs in the window, and the tented sign on the sidewalk. The brick front of the building was littered with ivy that nearly toppled over the doorway as Alfor opened the door for them. As he followed after them out of the muggy air, he batted off a fly from where it buzzed around his ear, and shut the door behind them. 

“I’ve never been here before,” Honerva commented as she peered up at the vaulted ceiling, and the second floor. The entire wall across from them was composed of glass, and it glowed in the afternoon with filtered sunlight. Parts of the windows were replaced with colored glass, and the ceiling was littered with multicolored wind chimes that captured the light and spread it in shifting, glittering scraps of blues and purples, reds and yellows. It turned the plant leaves everything but green as they walked across the restaurant after the hostess. 

They got a seat on the second floor where the glass ceiling slanted over them. A portion of their table was speckled with pinkish light as Alfor hung Honerva’s umbrella on the hook outside of their booth. The cushions were a patchwork of different patterns, and they curved into the U-shape of the booth where Honerva was sandwiched between Zarkon and Alfor, her eyes raised up to the hanging plants, and the pots lining the tops of the booths around them. 

“How did you find this place…” she said, turning her eyes down to Alfor, who sat beaming at the two of them. 

He brought his mind back into focus with a few blinks, shaking his head. “What? Oh, sorry—you two just… looks so lovely together. I rarely see you two together—aside from, you know, that time in the forest.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Zarkon accused, cheeks pink. 

“Lucky for us,” Honerva muttered, smirking at Alfor as she elbowed Zarkon in the arm. “But that still doesn’t answer the question.”

“Zar and I came here once—freshmen year,” Alfor said, about to recollect the day both he and Zarkon hopped off the train that rode south to Dalterion from Thayserix. 

There wasn’t much of a straight-shot from Thayserix to Dalterion, due to the fact that the Sound was in the way of a reasonable train bridge. Alfor’s mother trusted the train system more than anything that involved a ferry to Dalterion, and so she enlisted Zarkon to ensure that they both got to Dalterion safe and sound. “Don’t take your eye off of Alfor,” she warned Zarkon that morning at the train station. 

Zarkon had rolled his eyes and pretended to dismiss the order, but he kept Alfor under his wing from that moment onward, until they were settled in their dorms at the university in Dalterion. The trip took nearly a third of their day, and left only a few hours of light out for them to explore outside of the dorms. 

The dining hall wasn’t open at that time of the year—they were early newcomers, and the rest of the dorms would be filled by the end of the week. Upperclassmen dorm workers were around, and Zarkon asked what the best places were to eat around the city. That night they found themselves navigating city streets in search of the restaurant they sat in now with Honerva. 

“We stayed up through the entire train ride,” Zarkon said. “Which is really something considering the train left Thayserix at, like, some ungodly hour in the morning. The sun wasn’t even up. I remember I couldn’t sleep the night before because I was so excited to go to university and be away from my parents for once.”

Honerva laughed as Alfor whined and said, “Your parents are lovely though—!”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to _live with them_ for seventeen years,” he said. “I’m twenty-five and they still look at me like I’m five.”

“ _Gods_ , have you shown them the weapons you carry around at work?” Honerva laughed, and Zarkon covered his face with a groan as he admitted that he _had_ , and how _disastrous that went_. “Well what did you expect from them! I bet all their kitchen knives are meant for cutting butter!”

“I remember your mum’s reaction to all your sporting events. Just going to tournaments were enough to give her a heart attack,” Alfor said. 

“ _You_ were always the one saying we should do all these dangerous things! I kept you out of trouble, and this is how you repay me?” Zarkon whined, sending Alfor into a fit of giggles as he shrieked, “I did _no such thing!_ ”

“Oh? What sort of dangerous things did you do, Alfor,” Honerva prompted, placing her chin on her hand as she raised a slim eyebrow at him. “I never pegged you as _Mr. Danger_.”

“Well… have you ever been to Thayserix?” he asked, and when Honerva shook her head, he explained, “The coast there is all raised on bluffs and there are some that form archways in the ocean, and kids would pin ropes to the tops of the arches and swing down. You’d basically hold onto this rope and fling yourself off the cliff, and it’d jerk you back and you’d go soaring through the arch.”

“Holy—”

“It’s dangerous,” Zarkon said to her as she clasped a hand over her mouth and laughed. “Though, I’d argue that archery is a pretty dangerous sport.”

“Only if you’re playing with idiots,” she said with a grin, leaning back then as the waitress stopped by with their drinks. Despite it being only lunch, Honerva ordered herself a glass of wine, and Zarkon, after being glared at by Alfor, sided with a water. 

Zarkon found himself focusing only on Honerva’s soft smile lines as she said something to Alfor before looking down at the menu in her hand. He flushed when he realized he was staring, but couldn’t seem to stop in between reading off appetizers on his own menu. Her perfect brown skin was everything that mesmerized him the first time they met—

Something caught Zarkon’s eye across the table as it dropped against a bit of striped fabric on the seat cushion beside Alfor. 

“Looks like a spider’s there,” he said, pointing it out as the critter started crawling upward. 

Alfor plucked a leaf from one of the plants and used it to nudge at the spider to help it up. Just as he got it on the leaf, a glare of light caught them all off guard. Zarkon was already cussing before Coran was finished taking shape. “Are you fucking serious right now?” Zarkon groaned, putting his head in his hands.

Honerva jumped, startled by the intrusion almost as much as Alfor was. Alfor flung the leaf aside, grasping at the seat cushion as Coran shimmied up in the seat, clearing his throat along the way. “I-Is that—?” Honerva stammered, eyes wide as she took in the fact that _yes_ , Coran was indeed sitting at the table with them now.

“That… didn’t go as planned,” Coran confessed as Alfor pushed a hand over his eyes with a sigh.

“You _followed us here?_ ” Zarkon gawked.

“Well… not exactly…” Coran hummed, scratching at his cheek as Alfor bent over the table with a moan of distress. Honerva gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I have a surprisingly good sense of smell… the hair gel you’re wearing has a strong smell.”

Zarkon put a hand to his hair, and sniffed it before Honerva pulled his wrist over to smell it as well. Alfor unfurled off the table with a sigh, convinced that he shouldn’t be entirely surprised that Coran followed them, as he had done it plenty of times before. Alfor turned to stare at Coran, who looked more guilty than anything. He appeared to be on the verge of _embarrassment_.

“This happens often, I’m guessing,” Honerva commented. 

“I don’t tend to do it on _purpose_ , exactly,” he confessed.

“Sure seems like it to me,” Alfor said, and earned a frown from Coran for it. 

“In the forest—I used to do this a lot back when I didn’t know what I was doing. So I used to observe a lot of the animals, to figure out how they lived,” he said, tucking his hands on his lap. He was hardly dressed for the occasion, either. He was wearing one of Alfor’s sleep shirts and pants, and wasn’t at all prepared to shift back so soon. “I’m still not entirely sure what it is I’m supposed to be doing here…”

“How long has it been since you lived in a city?” Honerva asked, and Alfor was struck by her genuineness, and the soft, concerned look on her face.

Coran shrugged and said, “Since I was twelve, maybe? I can’t really remember. I don’t exactly have a calendar at home.” His expression fell, and Alfor’s instincts kicked in to just navigate the topic away from Coran’s nonexistent home.

“But hey—! Now that you’re here, this makes my plan a bit easier,” he insisted, reaching into his pocket for a card he made up late last night after getting home from his trip with Blaytz and Coran.

“Plan?” Honerva repeated, amused.

Before they could start, the waitress came up and took their orders. Alfor picked out a (vegetarian) dish for Coran, and Zarkon gave him a droll stare that said just about everything he thought about Coran being here in the first place. Alfor stuck his nose up, cleared his throat, and moved on to the next bit.

“I know most everything about you two,” he started, “so it makes this easier having a newbie around. I want you and Honerva to tell Coran about the first time you two met.”

He flipped his card over on the table so neither of them could see the upcoming questions. _That bastard_ , Zarkon thought, narrowing his eyes at his friend before glancing over at Honerva. She had her eyebrows raised, and took a steady drink of her wine before saying, “As in… the first time we talked, or…?”

“Whatever suits you,” Alfor said. 

“Well… we used to live in the same dorm—different wings, obviously,” Zarkon started, looking minimally at Coran so it didn’t feel like he was talking directly to Alfor’s flatmate. “But I never noticed her until I was walking through one of the lab buildings on campus.”

They were once freshmen, and the dorm they lived in had hundreds of students living there. It was difficult keeping tack of names and faces, but Zarkon tried his best. Alfor always called him a social butterfly, and he couldn’t be bothered to dispute it—he did make a lot of friends, and a lot of them stuck around because somehow, he just became a people-pleaser, and someone to depend on. He had an awful habit of helping damsels in distress during late-night parties, or just helping friends carry materials from one part of the university to the other—which was exactly what he was doing the day he first saw Honerva.

A few of his friends were in woodworking classes that blended with the laboratories where the chemistry and biology students worked. He didn’t have class the day he hoisted supplies from the back of the delivery truck onto the cart that he and the other students would push back to where the professor was giving lecture to students who were further behind in the course. Mostly, it was unsupervised horsing around in the corridors, and having races to see who could push the carts the fastest without sending the planks of wood flying.

He was in the midst of racing ahead on his cart, feet off the ground, veering a little to the right because the wheels refused to fly straight. He dropped a foot down to skid to a halt, twisting the cart so that it clobbered into his friend’s that was coming up behind him. They jolted into a fit of laughter, doubled over as some of the planks clamored off the cart and made enough of a racket to rouse a professor in one of the lab classes.

The second the professor came out with those beady eyes tucked behind glasses, they all shut up. “ _Quiet!_ There’s classes going on, and the noise isn’t helping.”

“Sorry professor,” Zarkon’s friend said. “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Get back to class,” she snapped. Zarkon straightened up, brushing his hands over his hair—it had gone berserk during the fly-by, and just as he did so, he looked into one of the other classes and found a lab table full of students leaning over to see what was going on in the corridor.

He first saw the girl sitting with her hands perched on the stool between her legs, wearing a pair of flowing slacks that buttoned up to her stomach. She was, perhaps, the most effortlessly beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Alfor could remember when Zarkon recounted every single event he and Honerva shared—he tended to do that without even thinking. They’d be zoning out after studying together for hours, and he’d say things like, “I can’t believe people are allowed to be that beautiful. Do you really think she’d like me like that?” After a while, he started insisting that seeing Honerva in the lab that day was love at first sight, and Alfor never questioned it. 

“You always just said ‘most beautiful girl, yada-yada-yada.’ I just thought you were being a sarcastic sap.” Honerva said.

“I would _never_ be sarcastic about that,” he insisted. “I would have stood there all day if my friend hadn’t dragged me off. But then, now that I knew what you looked like, I started seeing you everywhere in the dorms. I couldn’t eat a single meal without noticing you somewhere and having Alfor pester me about it.”

“And later Blaytz,” Alfor added. “We used to tease him whenever you walked by.”

“I _know_ because I always _saw you guys_ ,” she snapped at him, grinning devilishly at Zarkon. “You always turned into a tomato when they teased you.”

“Still do,” Alfor said.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Zarkon grumbled, crossing his arms. “What’s the next damn question.”

“Don’t need to be so happy about it,” Honerva laughed.

“Tell Coran about the first time you visited each other’s dorms,” Alfor said, gesturing to where their guest seemed more or less alarmed by the amount of teasing going on. 

Honerva looked at Zarkon, and Zarkon looked at her, and they were both at a loss for what to say. Zarkon turned his eyes up with a hum, thinking back on the years, rewinding them, and wrapping them up to pin the point where he first walked down the dorm corridor, tracking down the room number Honerva wrote on a slip of paper for him to follow after class. She made a rudimentary diagram for him, outlining the wing, as if she _knew_ that he hadn’t set foot in the girls’ wing of the dormitory.

“I mostly just used to walk her to class a lot,” Zarkon admitted, fiddling with the napkin on his lap like it was the piece of Honerva’s paper he kept as a bookmark for years until it landed in a spot of water and the ink rushed out during lunch one fateful day. “I didn’t want to seem presumptuous, so I only walked her if we happened to leave the dorm at the same time, or I’d reroute my walk at the end of my classes to take Honerva to her last lecture.”

“You did?” she said, and Zarkon ducked his head, cheeks pink. “I remember when I had those night classes second year, I was worried about walking home in the dark. I didn’t have night classes during my first year, so I never really had to walk back late. You offered to walk me after your practices.”

Zarkon remembered that, because the last half hour of practice was always either a disaster or the best half hour of practice that day. He’d either be too nervous when Honerva came to wait in the gymnasium, or feel that unnecessary need to show off, like how Blaytz was during games. He didn’t join any sports until the second year—he promised his parents that he’d stick to the books the first year anyways. 

“I was always sweaty and gross,” he said.

“I never minded it,” she insisted, shaking her head with a smile. “Your hair was always cute. Because you always started practices with your hair perfect and then it got all mused up from the helmets.” Zarkon turned into flustering mess and begged that Honerva show him mercy, _please_. 

“This still doesn’t explain the dorm room question,” Coran accused.

“They’re likely trying to hide something,” Alfor murmured, loud enough for them to hear and be offended by it.

“Stop accusing us of things! We never—! You have the dirtiest mind I know of,” Zarkon snapped as Alfor slapped his hands on the table and said, “We’re both twenty-five! You can’t blame me! We’re all adults here!”

“Debatable,” Honerva laughed, crossing her arms. “The first time Zarkon came to my dorm was at the end of first semester.”

Zarkon had knocked on her door the evening after he walked Honerva to her morning class. She had been fretting about her finals, and how she spent so much time fussing over her first exams that she completely failed to study for her last exam. He remembered how she gripped both sides of her face and dragged her cheeks down, moaning, “If I do terribly, I’ll be worrying about it _all holiday_. My dad would be so disappointed in me… The Lion Festival is my _favorite holiday_ and I wouldn’t be able to focus on it on the account that I completely and utterly _fail_ this _exam—_ ”

“Would you… like some help studying?” he said without thinking. He looked away before she could stare at him and his flushed cheeks. “I-I mean, I have a lot of experience studying because it was all Alfor did in grade school… and I have some background in higher-level maths.”

“You do?” she repeated, dully, not believing a single word of it until that evening when he showed up at her door with his bag full of old notebooks from past math classes. 

He sifted through them on her dorm room floor and pulled out a sheet of paper. He began folding it and tearing it into smaller and smaller rectangles until he created a deck of notecards to start with. She gave him her notes from lecture, and insisted that she couldn’t look at the questions in fear of having the answers memorized just from watching Zarkon write them out on notecards. He remembered how she sat on her bed, legs crossed, and sifted through Zarkon’s notebooks in quiet amazement—though at the time, he hadn’t pegged her expression to be that.

“But perfect notes _hardly_ translates into genius,” she argued at the restaurant table, arms crossed. “I figured you were just an excellent note-taker, not that you _knew what was going on in class_.”

“ _Rude_ ,” he said, hand over his heart.

“And I never really _went_ to your dorm room,” she continued. “You only ever went to _my_ room.”

“Well, that’s because _I_ had a roommate. I didn’t want to bother him by inviting people over,” he insisted. 

“But when you and Alfor lived together I came over! What changed?” 

“This is Alfor we’re talking about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alfor said.

“You and Alfor lived together?” Coran said, shocked. “I totally called it—you two _did have a thing—_ ”

“ _Coran!_ ” both Alfor and Zarkon shrieked, voices high-pitched. Coran snorted and hid his grin behind his hand as Honerva threw her head back laughing.

“Okay— _fine_. So back to the questions,” Coran said, and stopped Alfor from lifting up his card. “I get to ask one now.”

“That’s not how this works,” Alfor said.

“Why do you get all of the control in this situation?” Coran whined, and they glowered at one another until Alfor relented with a sigh. “Zarkon and Honerva—what did you do on your first date?” he asked.

Zarkon turned to Honerva, who blinked at Coran silently before slowly turning her gaze to Zarkon, saying, “We… never really went on dates before.”

“We used go to sporting events and study groups together,” Zarkon offered. “And I always visited you on the weekends for your archery tournaments.”

“But those weren’t really dates…”

“No, they weren’t,” he sighed. He scratched the side of his face and thought a bit harder. “Well… Blaytz _did_ bully me into talking to you for the first time.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Coran said.

“It’s because you spent an entire day with the damn idiot,” Zarkon remarked, and leapt in surprise when Honerva erupted into laughter. Zarkon rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t disguise his smile as anything other than what it was. 

Honerva reached for his hand and squeezed it under the table. “The first time you talked to me was in the dining hall. We were in line together and you said I looked nice.”

“You _did_ look nice.”

“I’m not saying I _didn’t_ look nice! Zarkon!” Honerva giggled, and gawked at Alfor as he nearly spat his water out. “He just implied that I thought I didn’t know!”

“Honerva looking nice is a known fact to humanity,” Alfor told Coran, “It’s like saying there’s three moons to your neighbor.”

“ _Alfor!_ You’re so _snarky today!_ ” she squeaked from beside him. “Coran doesn’t need to know the extent of my _vanity_.”

“You aren’t vain,” Zarkon said.

“Yes, well, you’re _supposed_ to say that,” she said.

“Alfor, tell her she isn’t vain,” he demanded.

“What! Why me?”

“Just say it!”

“Never!”

“Dear gods,” Coran mumbled to the side, turning his gaze away from the ridiculous bickering going on at their table.


End file.
